


into the blue

by winterfire22



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bisexual Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester is Ben Braeden's Parent, Established Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester, F/M, Harvelle's Roadhouse (Supernatural), Hunter Jessica Moore, Jessica Moore Lives, Jo Harvelle is a Winchester, John Winchester Being an Asshole, Season by Season, a frankly hedonistic level of self-indulgence, a jess-centric retelling of supernatural, because i am a dash fwb truther, hunter jess au, imagine sam with better haircuts this whole time. please., me at jessica moore: "i love you alive girl", this is NOT a john winchester friendly space, this is basically me re-writing the show from the ground up solving all my problems with it, very very background and temporary dean/ash, will eventually involve destiel because i can't not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:14:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 116,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29048238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterfire22/pseuds/winterfire22
Summary: alternative title: The Un-Fridging of Jessica Mooreone night in 2005, jess' boyfriend sam goes off with his brother after two years of radio silence. while he's gone, jess narrowly avoids being killed by a yellow-eyed demon. she demands answers, and the winchester boys have one or two.her run-in with the yellow-eyed demon changes the course of her life. she finds herself on the road with her boyfriend and his brother, searching for their father so they can find the demon who killed their mother-- and almost killed jess.so far, this fic covers the first 3 seasons in completion, and the first half of season 4. i post half a season at a time, so two chapters represent one season.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Jessica Moore & Dean Winchester, Jessica Moore & Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester, Jo Harvelle/Ruby
Comments: 29
Kudos: 44





	1. first half of season one

**Author's Note:**

> scheduling update 3/10: we're vibing. we're making progress on the second half of season four. we're deviating from cannon. hoping to finish within idk a week? two weeks max!
> 
> there will be destiel. just in case u were wondering. when the time comes, there will be a lot of destiel.  
> the series is mapped out through season 9 because i am insane. hoping to do regular updates!

SEASON ONE.

Jessica Moore likes to think of herself as a reasonably independent person. Having grown up an only child, she sort of always had to be-- she played by herself, never wore a single hand-me-down, and she was always the only kid at a table full of grownups on holidays. 

And as soon as she outgrew that role, she left her small Northern California hometown to move six hours south for college, which meant she was completely on her own for the first time in her life-- most of her high school friends had gone to school in Berkeley or somewhere small close to home. When she pulled her blue slug bug into her assigned spot near the Stanford dorms, the world opened up to her, and that sense of independence felt like a gift.

Then she’d ended up agreeing to date the tall quiet boy from her statistics class by spring break, and fallen stupidly in love with him by summer, and her world zeroed in a little bit. She moved straight from her dorm into a shoebox apartment with him the next fall. Her parents told her it was a mistake, but she knew it wasn’t. 

She’d never really dated in high school. Always valued her independence too much to make room for just any guy. But this guy was special. 

They’re twenty-two now, done with college and just beginning a gap year before grad school. And she still thinks of herself as an independent person, but maybe she’s a little too in love with the tall quiet boy from her freshman statistics class to commit fully to the idea.

So when his brother shows up, out of absolutely nothing, in the middle of the night, after two years of radio silence-- it freaks her out just a little bit.

Sam packs a bag and offers a thin explanation and he leaves with his brother to go track down their father. It doesn’t sound right to Jess, none of it does-- the last minute visit, their father being on a solo hunting trip, Dean being concerned enough to come get Sam to help, the way Sam’s face dropped when Dean said ‘hunting trip’-- 

(there must be more going on.)

It keeps her awake for the rest of the night, staring at the ceiling, the scent of her boyfriend’s bar soap still on the sheets.

The weekend passes. He has an interview first thing Monday morning, and by Sunday night, he still isn’t home. He’s pushing it. This is his whole future, their whole future, and he’s pushing it. So she hauls out flour and brown sugar and eggs and butter and vanilla and chocolate chips and she goes about her usual ritual of stress baking.

Jess eats cookies for dinner. Wishes Sam were here to eat cookies for dinner with her. She arranges the rest of them nicely on a plate, leaving it near the door so it’ll be the first thing he sees when he finally gets home. It’ll make him happy. He loves her baking.

The evening ends. She has work first thing in the morning, a shift at the breakfast restaurant she’s working at to save up tips for grad school-- so she goes about locking the apartment up and getting ready for bed. Hopefully she’ll wake up to the sound of Sam coming home.

She deliberates on whether to shower now or in the morning. She’ll have to wake up earlier, but she isn’t going to wash her hair anyway-- and she likes showering in the morning. It helps her wake up. It’s not like she’s particularly dirty after a day of sitting around at home, anyway.

She washes her face and brushes her teeth, her long blonde hair pulled into a loose knot at the nape of her neck. As she rinses her toothbrush off, she hears someone moving in the bedroom.

She smiles a little. Sam. She must not have heard him come in because the sink was on.

“Sam?” Jess calls as she puts her toothbrush back in the cup. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. 

No response. She wanders into the bedroom.

Immediately, her head feels thick and her hands feel numb. The man standing at the foot of her bed is not Sam. He isn’t tall enough. His hair isn’t right. He’s too scrawny. And his eyes--

“There-- there’s a credit card and like fifty bucks cash in my purse,” she hears herself say, tone pleading. “Um, and diamond earrings in the jewelry box behind you, and you can take my laptop-- please don’t hurt me--”

He smirks. It sends a freezing chill down her spine.

“I don’t want your earrings or your credit card,” the man says, his voice carrying a quality that she’s never heard before in real life, a weightless rot-- he’s playing with his food.

“Then what do you want?” she asks, her voice coming out an awkward squeak, her heart thumping so hard she can feel it in her forehead.

(how did he even get in?)

The man only smirks again. He looks amused. 

A weird, searing pain makes itself at home just above her belly button, and she doubles over, pressing her hand to it-- her flesh is ripping open, on its own, in a line-- she cries out, half in pain, half in confused fear.

The man stares hard at her. He blinks. His eyes are yellow, she finally realizes, the color of bile or dehydrated urine or an old sweat stain.

She feels her feet sliding backwards against the floor, against her will. Again, she cries out, but she can’t move, frozen in his heavy gaze. Her back hits the wall. To her horror, she starts sliding up the wall, the cut in her stomach pulling slowly wider--

“What are you doing to me?” she manages to eek out in a shaky plea. The apartment seems to rot around her, to grow haunted, to lick its teeth like it was a part of this planned assault all along.

“Jess!”

All at once, she falls hard to the floor, losing the foot or so she’d slid up the wall. The man with the yellow eyes is gone. One of the houseplants in their window clatters to the floor in a storm of broken glass and scattering earth.

“Jess, are you okay? Did he hurt you?” Sam asks, frantic, scrambling to get to her. His big hands reach for her shoulders.

“What the hell is going on, Sam?” she demands, her hand pressed to the unearned gash. “My skin just ripped open, it was like he was doing it with his mind, I--”

“Stay there,” Sam instructs, and before she can protest, before she can ask him to please not leave her, he’s out of the room. She tries to catch her breath. She hears him shout his brother’s name out the living room window, along with a few more words, something she doesn’t quite catch through the fear and confusion and pain.

But then Sam comes back, and he gently pulls her hand off the gash so he can look at it. “I don’t think you need stitches,” he says, helping her stand up. “Lay on your back so gravity can stop the bleeding. I’m going to get a towel.”

She does what he suggests, mostly because she doesn’t really know what else to do. Their unmade bed squeaks under her. “Sam, what’s going on?” She asks again.

“You don’t wanna know, Jess. Believe me. Just sit tight. My brother’s gonna get the-- the uh, the guy who was in here.”

“But he just disappeared into nothing,” she points out, almost laughing from the shock of it. She winces in pain. 

(i should clean up the plant bot before someone steps on it and hurts themself)

He comes back with a hand towel, and he presses it gently to the gash on her stomach. “Hold it there.” She does.

“How did he do that? He didn’t have a knife, he was like three feet away from me at least-- am I on drugs?”

“I wish this whole thing was because of drugs.”

She feels the chill again, and she sits up a little to look at him. He won’t look at her. There’s a tense set to his hazel eyes, a pull in his forehead she hasn’t seen before. It sends chills through her ears and fingers. He shakes his head.

“Sam,” she says. “Tell me what that was. You know, don’t you?”

He looks to her, desperation etching into his features. He opens his mouth, half a sound escaping, coming up empty. He shakes his head again.

“I don’t know exactly what that was,” he says quietly. “But I can guess.”

“What’s your guess, then?” She asks, regarding him nervously.

“A demon,” he admits.

She blinks. Looks down at the towel in her hand to make sure she isn’t suffering from some sort of blood loss related hallucination-- but there really isn’t much blood coming out anymore. “A demon.”

“Um, like the one that killed my mom,” he says quietly.

“What?”

He reaches for her free hand. “My dad and my brother, they hunt demons and other supernatural things. I probably led that demon right to you by getting involved again. I’m so sorry, Jess. I’m so sorry. I never wanted you to… to…” he trails off.

Before she can respond, she hears the door to their apartment open. She flinches hard.

“It’s my brother,” Sam says quietly. “Sit tight.”

She watches him leave the room. Hears Sam and his brother talking in quiet tones, and then his brother raises his voice-- “you told her? What’s our one rule, Sammy?”

“I know, Dean, but she saw him, I had to.”

Dean swears. The two of them come back into the bedroom, and Jess sits up the rest of the way, letting the towel fall. She isn’t bleeding much anymore, and it can just soak into her shirt.

“Whoa, shit, that doesn’t look good,” Dean says, his eyebrows nudging up. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she answers. “Will you guys please tell me what you mean? A demon?”

“Fraid so,” Dean sighs. “Wish I was here when he paid you that visit. I could’ve exorcized him."

The word swirls around her unsteady mind. Demon. 

“Why would a demon want to hurt me?” She asks quietly.

“Because you tangled with a Winchester,” Dean suggests. “Never a good thing to do.”

“Dean,” Sam huffs.

“You know it’s true, Sammy.”

Sam ignores his brother. He sits down on the side of the bed, setting his arm around Jessica’s shoulders, pressing a kiss to her temple. “I’m so sorry, Jess. I won’t let him hurt you again.”

“So there’s just demons in the world? And they’re… after you guys?”

“It’s complicated,” Sam says.

“So explain it,” she insists. “I’m all ears.”

+

It turns out the love of her life, the man she daydreams about marrying, has been lying to her this whole time. About lots of things-- his father’s job, his upbringing, his reason for going ghost on his brother, his mother’s death.

She leaves a voicemail at the breakfast place letting them know she’s sick and can’t come into work. She makes coffee. She sweeps up the fallen plant’s detritus. She pushes and probes the Winchester boys until they give her the answers she deserves.

“So he was trying to kill me,” she says slowly after Dean finally shuts up.

Sam sighs, covering his face with his hands for a second, pushing his hair back. 

“Same way our mom died,” Dean says with a nod. He sips his coffee, holding the cup by its base, not its handle. His rings clank against it. “Ceiling, blood, probably fire was next.”

“Fire.”

“I told you my mom died in a house fire when I was a baby,” Sam says. “That’s the truth, just not, you know, the whole truth.”

“So there’s a yellow-eyed demon running around giving the women in your life appendectomy scars and burning your homes down?” She asks, raising an eyebrow at her boyfriend. There’s a quake in her voice she doesn’t like, but all things considered, she can’t help it.

“That’s the long and short of it. Well-- I mean, we thought it was just a one time thing.”

“Our dad’s been hunting the son of a bitch all our lives,” Dean adds. “He’s gonna be furious when he finds out we were so close to the bastard without trapping him.”

“You can trap demons?”

“Yeah. Sigils and stuff.” Dean sips his coffee again, draining his cup. “I’m gonna go make some more.”

He stands and leaves the couch, taking Sam’s half empty cup and Jess’ mostly untouched cup. 

“I’m so sorry,” Sam says for the hundredth time.

“Can you please stop apologizing to me, Sam? It’s not going to change anything.”

“I know this is probably the hugest red flag of your life and you probably… wanna tell me to hit the road,” he says.

She rubs at her eyes, dry from so many hours awake, and groans into her hands. “Oh my god. You sound so stupid right now. Shut up.”

“Jess… I would understand completely if you…”

“I love you, Sam. I don’t want to break up.”

“Oh,” he exhales. “I love you too.”

“It’s just a lot to take in,” she continues. “And I kind of feel like we’re all just going crazy. Because none of this makes sense. Like, ghosts are real? Does that mean the lakehouse is actually haunted?”

“It might be,” Sam admits. 

“I always thought my mom told me those stories just to scare me.”

“I really wish none of it was real. I tried to live in a world where it wasn’t, but I should have known I was on borrowed time.” Sam sighs again.

Dean comes back into the room with three steaming mugs. He sets them down on the table. “I forget whose is whose. But me ‘n Sam are brothers and you two make out regularly so it probably doesn’t matter.”

“Ew, Dean, come on,” Sam groans.

Jess laughs a little. She picks up the mug that was hers, a Stanford U mug their friend Brady had gotten them as a housewarming gift. Its mate had broken a few weeks before, shattered on the plastic tile floor of their kitchen during a rushed dishwasher unload.

“Have you gotten a hold of Dad yet?” Sam asks, evidently noticing that Dean is sliding his phone into his pocket.

“Negative on that one. I’ll keep trying.”

“Shit,” Sam says. 

“How do you hunt a demon?” Jess asks. “If they can teleport in and out, how do you track them?”

“You don’t,” Dean answers, cringing as he burns his mouth with coffee. “I mean, not in the way you’re thinking, I guess. It ain’t like hunting an animal. It’s more complicated. I mean, if I had a solid answer for you, that yellow-eyed son of a bitch would already be toast.”

“Okay,” Jess says, sighing a little bit. “I get the picture.”

“I could really use your help on this one, Sammy.”

Sam nods slowly. “I… I kinda get why Dad is the way he is,” he admits. “If Jess…” he looks toward her. Then he shakes his head. “We need to ice that bastard.”

“Yeah. Great.”

“So we’ll go tomorrow after Sam’s interview,” Jess suggests.

Both the boys look at her, Sam’s eyebrows nudged down, Dean’s nudged up. “Don’t take this the wrong way, blondie, but like hell you’re coming with us,” the older brother says.

Her blue eyes narrow. At twenty two years old, she’s already had more than enough of men like this. “So what’s the right way to take that? You think I’m too fragile to hunt a demon? I’m not just some naive little girl.”

“The plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies on the kitchen table begs to differ.”

“Dean, come on. Don’t be a jerk.” Sam turns to Jess. “It’s so dangerous, Jess. Me and Dean, we’ve been doing this our whole lives. You’ve never even shot a gun before.”

“I’m not just going to sit at home while you risk your life,” she argues. “I’m coming with you.”

“No way in hell,” Dean says, standing up. “I’m going to grab a motel room and catch a few Z’s. Sammy, I’ll be back here for you at noon. See you in--” he looks at his watch-- “eleven and a half hours. Jess, great to meet you.”

Jess watches him leave, wondering how Sam turned out so nice if his big brother is such an asshole. Once the door clicks shut behind him, she turns back to her boyfriend.

“It would kill me if something happened to you,” he says.

“Yeah,” she replies impatiently, “I know the damn feeling, Sam. I spent this whole weekend worrying about you. I’m not going to sit around knitting a scarf hoping you eventually turn back up.”

He sighs. “You don’t know what it’s like. How awful a gig it is. Hunting damn near ruined my life, Jess. It’s consumed my dad’s and my brother’s. It’s not something you just dip your toes into for the weekend and then come home.”

“If you leave me here alone, that demon might come back for me,” she points out.

He cringes a little bit. “Why do you always have to be right?”

“It’s a gift. So can I come with you tomorrow? Please?”

Sam exhales, rubbing at his chin. “Fine. But we’re giving you a crash course on hunting and you’re going to follow our lead.”

“Okay,” she says. She stands up from the couch, setting her hand on his shoulder, leaning down to kiss his cheek. “You better get some sleep before that interview.”

+

Dean never seems to actually get on board with it, but he doesn’t stop her from coming. He drives off in his shiny black Impala, her and Sam tailing him in Sam’s car, since he can’t comfortably fit in her slug bug and it’s half-dead anyway. 

The first few hunts are not terribly complicated-- an ancient forest monster in Colorado, an angry ghost haunting a lake in Wisconsin. A monster and a ghost don't really scare her much compared to the yellow-eyed demon. The adrenaline of the whole thing keeps her wide awake and too laser-focused to consider fear, anyway.

The Winchester boys show her the ropes. They save people. John Winchester never calls back.

Jess would rather focus on finding the demon who caused this whole thing so she can get back to her normal life, but Sam and Dean tell her it’s more complicated than that, and they might as well help people where they can as they try to find John, that there’s a high chance of finding him on any given hunt because he might have beat them to it. Once they find John, they’ll be able to find the demon. He probably knows more about it than he’s letting on.

It’s two weeks before Dean mentions he needs to take a solo trip to Indiana for some reason he won’t share. They leave him in Nevada and make the five hour drive back to their apartment in Palo Alto.

But as they turn onto their street, just as the sun is pulling down toward the horizon, they’re greeted with sirens and thick smoke and insidious bleeding flame.

“Holy shit,” Sam breathes, stalling in the middle of the street, his foot lingering on the brake pedal.

“Is that our building?”

“I can’t tell.”

“Stop braking in the middle of the street, then, dummy.”

“Yeah.” He hits the gas pedal again and they inch closer. He’s able to park a block away, and they watch the firefighters work on the building from the outside, a few ambulances lingering nearby. It’s definitely their building. And the fire is coming from their corner of it. Their floor.

“Did we… leave the oven on or something?” Sam asks stupidly.

“No. We wouldn’t do that. And we’ve been gone for two weeks so if we caused this, it would have happened a long time ago.” Jess frowns, her fingers worrying together, taking up a handful of her tee shirt’s hem. “You said… I mean, when your mom passed away, the demon set your house on fire, right?”

“Yeah. But nobody’s in our apartment.”

“Maybe he got someone else.”

Jess swears she can see the color drain out of Sam’s face.

“It’s possible, right?” She asks, reaching for his big hand, playing with his thumb.

“Yeah. I guess.” He rubs at his face with his other hand. “Should we call Dean?”

“Maybe not. It seemed like whatever’s in Indiana is really important. Maybe we should wait until he can make it there, at least.”

“Okay. Yeah.” Sam nods. 

The two of them sit in the car watching their apartment building burn for the several minutes it takes firefighters to put the fire out. They watch paramedics load stretchers into ambulances. Coughing residents stumble out. 

“I hope nobody died,” Sam says after a heavy quiet.

Jess looks from the building to her boyfriend. Her eyebrows knit. “Sam, it’s a huge building with lots of people and shitty fire escapes,” she points out. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”

“I never should have gone with Dean in the first place,” Sam groans, rubbing at his eyes. “This has to be my fault.”

“How could it possibly be your fault?”

He doesn’t answer her. They get a motel.

The next day they’re able to go into their apartment. The kitchen and living room are wrecked. The bedroom and bathroom too. The only salvageable part of the whole unit is the closet, since the door had been closed and the fire hadn’t gotten in. They take the rest of their clothes. Pretty much everything else is a lost cause.

“At least we had our laptops and money and stuff,” Sam remarks as they leave the soot-laden apartment, stepping into the charred hallway.

Jess doesn’t reply. Their neighbor’s door is hanging open, burnt halfway off, crime scene tape from one corner of the door frame to the other. She glances toward Sam briefly. Then she reaches for it.

“Jess, what--”

“I just want to see.”

She sets down the duffel bag of unburnt clothes in the hall and ducks under the crime scene tape. 

“Jess, come on, don’t go into an active crime scene.”

“What did we just spend the last two weeks doing?” She asks without turning back. “Keep watch for me, okay? I’ll be quick.”

He huffs a little, but he doesn’t argue. She steps into the apartment cautiously, looking around, taking in the charred furniture and broken bits of doors and glass. 

(why is this room marked a crime scene?)

The answer comes to her as soon as she pokes her head into what used to be the bedroom. The ceiling is charred above the bed, but in the shape of a person, there’s an unburnt spot. 

Her heart goes cold. There’s blood on the half-ruined bedding.

She glances over her shoulder for no real reason. Then she hears herself speak without really meaning to. “Sam?”

His footsteps through the doorway, through the living room, behind her.

“Look at the ceiling,” she says uneasily once he makes it to her side.

“Shit,” he exhales, reaching for her, tucking his arm around her shoulders-- “we need to get out of here, Jess. Come on.”

“Did the demon do this because he didn’t get me?”

“I don’t know.”

“How many more people…”

“Jess, I don’t know. We need to go.”

She lets him lead her out. Back down to the ground floor, to the car, to the motel. Hours later when he thinks she’s asleep, she hears Sam talking on the phone to his brother in hushed tones.

+

The next morning, Jess is already out of the shower drying her hair by the time Sam wakes up. And she’s already come to a decision.

“Morning,” he says as he passes her, pressing a kiss to her cheek as he makes his way to the shower. He turns it on, takes his tee shirt and boxers off, and steps in.

“Morning,” she returns, mulling over her thoughts for a moment as he turns the water on. 

“There’s not really any reason to stick around Palo Alto, I figure,” she says, talking loud so he’ll be able to hear over the sound of the shower. “Should we head toward Indiana to meet up with your brother?”

“Uh, I don’t know,” Sam says from the other side of the shower curtain. “He was being shifty. I think he has something going on he doesn’t want me to know about. Maybe we should sit tight.”

She regards herself in the mirror. Sets the damp towel down on the counter. “I want to leave,” she rephrases.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. We don’t even go to Stanford anymore. Our apartment burnt down. I just feel kind of restless, I guess. Like something is going to happen.”

“Like what’s going to happen?”

She shrugs even though he can’t see her. She regards herself in the mirror. “I don’t know. This whole thing is just so weird. I don’t want to stick around.”

“Okay,” he says. “We can head toward Indiana. See if there’s a case on the way so Dean can meet us.”

“Cool.” She puts on a little bit of makeup since she has time to kill anyway. Sam comes out of the shower with a towel wrapped around his waist a couple minutes later.

“You want to stop for breakfast at Smokey’s?” He suggests as he takes clothes out of his duffel. “Since we’re not going to be back here for a while, and all?”

She pictures their favorite diner in her head, with its confusing bear and duck theme and its piles of fluffy brown pancakes. But she doesn’t really have an appetite. “If you want to,” she answers.

“We don’t have to. But we should eat something before we hit the road.”

She’s about to reply. But then she catches the sound of her Motorola Razr ringing from the depths of her purse.

“Can you grab that for me?” she asks, zipping up her toiletries bag.

“Yeah.” Sam finds it quickly and she meets him halfway to take it.

“Thanks.” She flicks it open and holds it to her ear with her left hand, tossing her toiletries bag into her duffel with her right. “Hello?”

“Sweetheart,” her aunt Sandra’s voice comes, thick with tears. Jess’ hands go cold, and she frowns hard.

“Hi,” she says cautiously. “What’s going on, Aunt Sandra?”

“I’m so sorry to have to tell you this,” her aunt says, sniffling. “Are you alone?”

Jess glances toward Sam. He meets her eyes, asking a silent question. She shrugs. “No. I’m with my boyfriend.”

“You aren’t driving, or at work, or anything?”

She thinks of her slug bug, burnt to a crisp in the parking garage under the apartment building. Of her abandoned waitressing job. “No.”

“I’m so sorry to have to tell you this,” Sandra says again. “But… sweetheart, there was a fire.”

She feels her ears go numb, her stomach twist. “What do you mean?”

“Your parents’ house burnt to the ground. Sweetheart, they didn’t make it. I’m so sorry.”

Without thinking about it, her shaky hand covers over her mouth. She doesn’t reply. Just stands there, one hand on her mouth, one hand on her phone. Sam yanks his shirt on haphazardly and takes a few clumsy steps toward her, reaching for her.

“Jess, baby, what’s going on?” he asks nervously.

“You ought to get your boyfriend to drive you up here,” Sandra goes on. “If he can’t, I’ll send your uncle to come pick you up.”

“Are you sure?” Jess asks stupidly. “Are you sure they’re… gone?”

“I’m afraid so, Jessica, honey.”

“Um, I’ll… talk to you later,” she says stiffly. She hangs up the call. Slides the phone into the back pocket of her jeans.

“Jess?” Sam asks, his eyebrows knit with concern.

She blinks, her head filled with heavy cotton static. Then without really thinking about it she reaches for him. Tucks her face into his shoulder. He hugs her back automatically.

“My parents,” she explains quietly. “There was a fire.”

Her voice sounds wrong to her own ears. The words don’t feel real. Sam barely feels real.

“Are they…” he trails off. She feels his palm against the back of her head, his other arm wrapped around her. He’s still warm from the shower.

“Yeah, they’re dead,” she confirms. Her voice gets muffled by his shoulder. The tears don’t come until a good thirty seconds later.

+

The trip to her hometown up north is a haze. Her aunt takes care of the funeral arrangements. Jess rummages around the safe in the fire-mangled basement of the house she grew up in for her passport and social security card and the keys to her family’s lakehouse. Pretty much everything else is destroyed. It was an old house, dry and brittle in places-- probably went up in minutes.

“Are you okay?” Sam asks her for the millionth time as they drive away from the charred remains.

She sighs, picking at a scab on her thumb. “Let’s just go meet your brother so we can find that demon and kill it.”

+

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Sam asks her as he pulls the car off the highway and onto the exit ramp somewhere in Utah.

“I’m fine, Sam.” She toys with her seatbelt. 

“It’s okay if you’re not.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to find the demon.”

“Jess… baby, we don’t even know if he’s what caused the house fire,” Sam points out.

(yeah we do.)

“What else would it be?” Her voice betrays her. “Two fires in two days? Our apartment, then my parents’ house? That’s not normal.”

“Maybe it’s just really bad luck.”

“You don’t seriously think that.”

“I don’t know. Weirder things have happened.”

She exhales, picking up a gas station receipt out of the cupholder and ripping it in half. “It doesn’t sit right with me. It has to be the demon.”

“It’s not his usual M.O.,” Sam says. Pulling into a residential part of the Utah town, he slows down. 

“We only have two cases to go off of. I don’t think that’s enough to say he has a usual M.O. And anyway, what’s so off about it?”

“I don’t know. I wanna ask my brother.”

“Have you talked to him about it yet?” She asks. During the four days they spent in her hometown, there was plenty of time he could have done so without her knowing, thanks to her aunt continuously stealing her away.

“I just mentioned that it happened. Didn’t get into specifics.”

“Can I have his number?”

“Uh, sure,” Sam says. He fishes around for his cell phone and hands it to her. “He’s in my contacts.”

She copies the number into her Razr. Considers texting him, but figures she’ll just call later when she gets a minute alone. Dean doesn’t seem to know what texting is.

“That motel look okay?” Sam asks.

“Yeah. Fine,” she affirms, her mind elsewhere.

+

Before she can wallow too deeply in self pity, Dean calls, and the three of them get swept up in another case-- a plane crash. They ghost hunt with Dean’s homemade EMF reader. They board a possessed flight last minute to stop it from crashing. The adrenaline rush wakes her up. And the win feels good after the week she’s had.

Then it’s off to Ohio for a Bloody Mary case that turns out to be a vengeful spirit.

“What’s with all these angry ghosts?” Jess asks as the three of them sit down at a picnic table to eat the burgers they’d picked up on the way out of town.

“Dunno,” Dean says with his mouth full. 

“It’s a lot of anger to hold onto even after you die. Wouldn’t you just want to move on?”

“Not my job to psychoanalyze hauntings,” Dean suggests.

“I think it’s more complicated than that.” Sam unwraps his burger carefully. “I think people have a right to be angry sometimes. I’m angry about stuff.”

“The hell do you have to be angry about?” Dean asks.

Jess glances between the brothers. 

(plenty, she wants to say. plenty.)

“I don’t know,” Sam dismisses. He takes a bite of his food. Never one to talk with his mouth full, he leaves it at that.

+

They take a couple days after the airplane thing. The motel only has one room available, so the three of them share it, and Dean sleeps face-down and fully-dressed on his bed all day. Sam answers an ad in the newspaper to do some lawn maintenance for an old lady to earn a little bit of money. 

With the day to herself, and a sleeping Winchester taking up the hotel room, Jess does one of the few things she knows will bring her some degree of peace: she works out until she can hardly stand anymore.

The motel gym is occupied by a couple businessmen, and she really doesn’t feel like having men stare at her (there’s only so much a sports bra can do), so she heads outside instead. The November air is crisp and cold, but she warms up a few minutes into the first mile.

Wind shouts into her ears as she goes.

(your parents are dead, it seems to taunt. you almost joined them. maybe their death is your fault. it probably is. it’s gotta be)

Somehow she knows that if she had died that night in Palo Alto, like she was supposed to, her parents would be okay. That she disrupted things by falling down the wall. That the gash on her stomach, now just a raised pink scar, was never supposed to heal.

Sam was supposed to get home a few minutes later. 

She exhales hard and runs harder. Her long blonde hair, tucked into a loose braid, flops against her back as she goes. 

(this isn’t something you dip your toes into for the weekend, sam had told her.)

And now her parents are dead. Burnt to a crisp, probably by the same demon who had tried to end her life.

No. Things are different now. Things are messy. As she pushes through the chilly streets, working up a sweat, her breath getting heavier, she can almost see all of this and how it will unfold. 

(it’s just anxiety. you’ve been through a lot recently. that’s all it is. it’s not intuition or whatever, it’s just anxiety.)

But it spooks her. It follows her back to the motel room, into the shower, and into the main room to sit on the unoccupied bed. She’d planned on going back out after showering, but the truth is, she doesn’t want to be alone right now, and the wrong Winchester brother is better than no one at all.

+

“We’ll hit Toucum by lunchtime,” Dean says, “and Bisbee by midnight… and Sam wears women’s underwear?”

Jess laughs a little. Sam doesn’t bother looking up from his Blackberry.

“I’m listening. I’m just reading emails.”

“From who?” Dean pushes, finishing his coffee, tossing it in the trashcan near the rest stop picnic table the three are sitting at.

“A friend from Stanford.”

“Who?” Jess asks.

“Brady,” Sam answers.

“You seriously keep in touch with your college buddies?” Dean asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Uh, yeah.”

“What do you tell them?”

“That we decided to go on a road trip during our gap year instead of sit around Palo Alto and wait tables,” Jess answers. She shrugs. “Nobody’s questioned it. Especially after our apartment burnt down a few weeks back.”

(using the excuse of her parents suddenly dying would be more foolproof, but jess doesn’t want to go there. she hasn’t told any of her stanford friends about her parents)

Thinking about it makes her feel a little cold. She finds Sam’s free hand under the table and starts playing with it in both of hers.

“So you lie to them,” Dean suggests.

“No, we just don’t tell them everything,” Sam corrects. “We are on a road trip.”

“Yeah. That’s called lying.”

“What, are we supposed to cut everyone out of our lives?” Sam asks.

Dean makes a face that suggests inevitability. 

“You’re serious?”

“Hey, it sucks, I get it. But this line of work-- you can’t get close to people.”

Jess frowns a little bit.

(dean has a point.)

“You’re kind of anti-social, you know that?”

“Whatever,” Dean says, easily shrugging his brother’s insult off.

“Wait,” Sam says, turning back to his phone. “I have an email from Rebecca Warren.”

“Who?” Dean asks.

“Friend of ours. We went to school with her and her brother Zach,” Jess answers, frowning. “What’s up with Becky?”

“Is she hot?”

Sam and Jess both ignore Dean’s question.

“Zach was charged with murder,” Sam reads, voice going a little quieter, eyebrows nudging together. He glances to Jess before reading the rest of the email. “He was arrested on the charge of killing his girlfriend. Rebecca says he didn’t do it, but the cops have a pretty good case.”

“Dude, what kinda people do you two hang out with?”

“No, man,” Sam says, shaking his head at his brother. “I know Zach. He’s no killer.”

“Yeah, they’re good people. This can’t be right,” Jess agrees.

“Maybe you know Zach as well as he knows you,” Dean quips.

“They’re in St. Louis. We’re going,” Sam says.

Jess nods. “Yeah. Let’s get over there and figure this out. Sounds like they need our help.”

Dean half-chuckles. “I’m sorry about your buddy, but this does not sound like our kind of problem.”

“It is our problem,” Sam insists. “They’re my friends.”

“St. Louis is 400 miles behind us, Sammy.”

“You don’t have to come,” Jess points out. “Me and Sam can head over and meet up with you after.”

Sam nods once.

Dean rolls his eyes, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Fine.”

+

The three of them make it to the Warren’s family home six hours later, and Sam and Jess greet Becky warmly, introducing her to Dean. Becky explains things to them-- that Zach came home to find his girlfriend Emily tied to a chair, so he called the police, but they arrested him on the spot.

“The only way Zach could have killed Emily is if he was in two places at the same time,” Becky concludes tearfully. “The police-- they have a video from the security tape across the street. And it shows my brother coming home at 10:30. Emily was killed right after that. But I swear, he was here with me drinking beer until at least after midnight.”

“I’m so sorry, Becky,” Jess says, squeezing her friend’s shoulder. “We believe you. We know Zach wouldn’t do anything like that.”

“Thanks,” she says, sniffling. 

“We want to help,” Sam adds. “Maybe we could see the crime scene. Zach’s house.”

“Why? What could you do?”

“Me and Jess, not much,” Sam answers, “but Dean’s a cop.”

Jess can practically feel the ‘come on, man,’ Dean is holding back, and its accompanying eyeroll. But he goes along with his little brother’s lie.

“A detective, actually.”

“Really?” Becky asks. “Where?”

“Bisbee, Arizona. But I’m off duty now.”

“We can prove he’s innocent,” Sam adds.

Jess nods. “Yeah. We all know Zach would never do something like that.”

“Thanks, guys,” Becky says, wiping a tear from her eye. “Um, I’ll get you the keys.”

+

Jess, Sam, and Dean work the case under Becky’s nose until the shapeshifter causing all the problems takes Dean’s place and tries to murder her. It’s messy, and it ends with Dean being declared legally dead, but they clear Zach’s name. In the end they have to tell the Warrens what they do, which breaks Dean’s number one rule. Jess figures he’ll survive not getting his way one single time. He’s distracted from it quickly anyway, oddly cheerful about being declared dead.

(i don’t think i’m ever going to understand that guy, jess muses when his face lights up at the news.)

Next it’s on to Iowa for a case that sounds like it’s straight out of an urban legend-- a real life hook man. Then they squat in a housing development for a few days in Oklahoma to investigate a weird bug situation. After that, as they recover from an itchy mass of bee stings, things are quiet for a few days. They end up in a motel in Tulsa that looks like it’s straight out of the 1970s. They find jobs in the newspaper-- Jess babysits for an evening, Sam spends two days painting a fence and a barn, and Dean goes to a bar to hustle pool, which is not something Jess realized anybody did in real life.

The older kid at the babysitting job is nine, so she does her own thing for most of the evening. The five year old girl and the baby boy are a bit more work, but all in all, it’s kind of nice to do normal person stuff for a few hours.

“You’re really pretty,” the five year old girl pipes up randomly as Jess bottle feeds the baby.

She laughs. “Thank you. That’s really sweet of you. I think you’re really pretty too.”

“Like princess pretty?”

“Oh, definitely,” Jess confirms. 

(this girl isn’t going to last long)

She freezes a little, blinking. She glances over her shoulder, mirroring Sam’s usual confusion movement for no reason in particular. The baby in her arms sneezes. She looks back down.

“Are you feeling okay, sweetheart?” she asks the five year old.

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure?”

The kid shrugs. Jess finishes feeding the baby and sets the bottle down, shifting the baby to one arm. With her other hand, she reaches for the five year old, feeling her forehead. No fever or anything, at least not as far as Jess can tell.

The kid doesn’t seem to notice that her babysitter is suddenly acting weird. She skips away and reaches for her Barbies.

There’s a pull from the left. Hard and sharp, more urgent than anything Jess has felt in her life.

She frowns. Trying to act casual, she sets the baby down in his playpen and follows that direction, finding herself at the dining room window. She can see into the green house next door. Can see a middle aged man in a bathrobe, holding a VHS tape, walking through his kitchen.

(bad?)

(don’t be weird, she tells herself, it’s nothing.)

An hour later she puts the five year old and the baby to bed in their rooms upstairs. She goes back to that dining room window. Makes sure it’s locked.

Just for good measure, she wanders the rest of the house, checking window locks and all three doors outside. Everything is locked except the sliding door on the left side of the house. She tries to lock it, but the lock just flicks back open. Broken.

(no you need to lock it or that kid)

She shakes her head as if to dismiss the incomplete thought. But then she wanders the house until she finds something she can use to block the door from opening-- a thick wooden yardstick. She sets it in the sliding door’s track, and tests the door. The lock is still broken, but there’s no opening it now. Not from the inside, not from the outside.

(fixed)

“You need to get more sleep or something,” she mutters to herself under her breath. Losing her parents, almost dying, getting pulled into this weird monster hunting road trip-- it must have taken its toll on her. Made her paranoid.

(anxiety not intuition, she reminds herself silently.)

But the next evening, Jess and the Winchester boys drive past that house on their way to get dinner. There are two police cars parked outside the neighbor’s house. The same one on the other side of the sliding door she had stopped up.

“Dean, stop the car,” she says immediately from the back seat of the Impala.

He does it. Meets her blue eyes with his green ones in the rearview mirror. Blinks. “Why?”

At the same time, Sam turns to look at her over his shoulder, his eyebrows knit. “Baby, you okay?”

“That’s the house I was babysitting at last night,” she says, already unbuckling her seatbelt.

“Jess--”

At six p.m. in winter, it’s fully dark. Jess pulls her jacket tighter around herself as she approaches. There are neighbors outside, standing around, watching.

“What’s going on?” She asks a couple watching from across the street, a man and woman in their 60s.

“The Anderson house,” the woman answers gravely, just as Sam and Dean catch up with her. Sam sets a hand on her shoulder. “Attempted break in.”

“Are the kids okay? The middle girl?” Jess hears herself ask.

“As far as I know,” the woman says. “Harold here, he heard some commotion. So we looked out the window and saw the man from that green house trying to get in through the Anderson’s side door. He couldn’t get it open, but he was really trying to. Seemed weird to me.”

“Yeah,” her husband agrees. “If a door is locked it’s locked. Why would you keep trying? Just break it.”

(it’s not locked. the lock is broken. it’s just jammed shut with a yardstick.)

“We oughta get out of here,” Dean’s voice comes from behind Jess. She ignores it.

“So you called the police?” Jess presses.

“That’s right. That man, he was always so nice, wasn’t he, Harold?”

“Sure was.”

“So we gave him the benefit of the doubt,” the woman continues. “Harold here went over to ask him what was going on. He pulled a knife out and this bottle of little white tablets fell out of his pocket.”

“I used to be in the army,” Harold pipes up. “Instincts kicked in. I got the fella in a choke hold and got the knife. Susan here, she was watching, so she called 911.”

“It’s a good thing that door was locked,” Susan adds. “Or we wouldn’t have heard him trying to break in at all. He just would have been able to slip right in and drug and kill them or whatever it is he was gonna do.”

“Yeah,” Jess says, even though she knows for a fact the door was not locked. 

“Jesus,” Dean huffs. “Sick bastard.”

“Good on you two for stopping the guy and calling the police,” Sam says.

The five of them watch the cops haul the man into a car, handcuffed, and drive away with him. The scattered neighbors all wander back into their houses after that. The spectacle is over.

“Little white tablets,” Dean comments as he, Sam, and Jess head back to the Impala. “Roofies.”

“How do you know that?” Sam asks.

Dean shrugs.

“And… Jess, why did you ask about the middle kid?”

She swallows. Glances over her shoulder toward the green house. Doesn’t answer until they’re all in the car.

“I don’t know,” she says slowly. “I had this feeling last night. I was looking at her, when I was babysitting, and it was like I knew she was going to…” she trails off. Wishes Dean wasn’t in the car staring at her. Wishes she was alone with Sam so she could sort this out.

“What?” Sam asks gently.

“Die,” Jess admits, her voice coming out small and strained. “I felt this pull toward the left. So I looked out the window and… I saw that guy in his house holding a video tape. I don’t know. It gave me the creeps. After I put the kids to bed, I checked all the locks, and the sliding door-- the lock was broken, Sam. It wouldn’t stay shut. So I jammed the door closed with a yardstick.” 

Dean blinks. Looks at his brother for a second. Sam’s eyes are on Jess.

“You had a feeling the middle kid was gonna die, and you felt a pull from the left, so you saw a man, and you jammed the door shut?” Dean recounts, tone implying he thinks she’s the stupidest person he’s ever met.

Sam picks up on it too. “Dean.”

“So, what, you’re psychic now?”

“No,” Jess says immediately. “It was just-- I’ve been kind of on edge since the whole-- with the demon and my parents dying and all of that. I’ve just been on edge. Paranoid, I guess. Sometimes paranoia pays off.”

Both boys are still staring at her. She wishes they wouldn’t.

Then, Dean turns around. Slides the key into the ignition; starts his car. “Okay, well, good thing you locked the door, I guess. Who’s hungry?”

+

Jess quietly checks up on local news regularly over the next couple days, even as they leave Tulsa. The neighbor had all kinds of pictures of the Anderson’s middle daughter all over his house. Zoomed in from his lookout, some taken through her house’s windows, some of her playing outside. Pictures of her sleeping, from right above her bed-- he’d used that sliding door with the broken lock before, at least a few times.

Hundreds of pictures. Hours of footage recorded of her. As far as the cops could tell, he’d been planning this for a while. He was ready to abduct her.

(and i took one look at that little girl and knew it. how?)

The question keeps her awake all night.

+

“Rise ‘n shine, lovebirds,” Dean’s voice comes loudly. 

Jess wakes up, rubbing at her eyes, pulling air into her lungs. She blinks at the older Winchester brother, who is standing over the bed with a shit eating grin.

“Dean, hi,” she says, voice dry and tired. “Uh, what time is it?”

“Dean, we gave you that key card for emergencies, not to come wake us up before it’s even light outside,” Sam scolds, pulling the sheet up to cover his bare chest, even though he’s a guy, even though Dean is his brother. 

“Well, I got an emergency, little brother. We gotta haul ass to Colorado. Friend of mine called with a case. Let’s go!”

“Friend of yours,” Jess repeats, yawning into her hand. “Didn’t you tell us we aren’t allowed to have friends like three weeks ago?”

“Hunter friend,” Dean corrects. “He caught wind of two cases at the same time, and he can’t be two places at once, so he was hoping I was near Colorado. Well, we are. So up and at ‘em, let’s get moving.” Dean wanders to the door and leaves the hotel room.

Jess and Sam watch it fall closed behind him, still in bed. Then, they look at each other.

“Does he just not sleep?” Jess asks, rubbing at her eyes again. “I mean, I’m a morning person, but it’s barely 5 a.m.”

Sam sighs, sitting up, stretching his shoulders. His hair is sticking up off his forehead. “That’s Dean for ya. One track mind. If it’s not hunting, cars, sex, or rock ‘n roll, he doesn’t want to hear about it.”

“Ha. Yikes. We gotta get him some hobbies. I’m gonna hop in the shower.”

+

They make the seven hour drive to the small Colorado town, arriving by late afternoon. 

“You still haven’t told us jack about the case, Dean,” Sam says as the three of them head for their newly-booked neighboring motel rooms.

“If you two didn’t think you were too good for my ride, I coulda told you during the drive.”

“Just tell us,” Sam huffs.

“Okay, okay.” He follows Jess and Sam into their hotel room, setting his duffel on the floor and flopping down onto the couch. “So my hunting buddy Jay, he found this case on the weirdo online forums he follows. Basically, this teen girl and her mom were home alone, and all the doors were locked, but the kid woke up for school and her mom was dead.”

Jess thinks of her own mom. Pictures her, with her crooked smile, her light blue eyes, her curly brown hair bunched up into a thick claw clip to go hiking or take an afternoon walk, always with the sunglasses perched on her forehead. 

Burnt to dust. 

The thoughts turn to a heavy numbness behind her forehead, like drenched cotton. She glances from Dean to Sam, and without thinking about it, her feet carry her a step closer to her boyfriend. Her hand opens, then closes into a fist.

“Dead how?” Sam asks his brother, not seeming to notice.

“Looked like someone had taken a couple bites out of her.”

“So… do you have any idea what did it?”

“Something that feeds on humans. Kitsune, ghoul, rugaru, I don’t know. It could be a whole laundry list of things. We need more intel. We gotta get in on that crime scene.”

“Should we get into our fed outfits?” Sam asks. 

“Probably best.”

“Don’t you guys ever get caught when you pretend to be FBI?” Jess cuts in, blinking, clearing her head. “You look like college students.”

Dean shrugs. “You roll up with confidence, you can do whatever you want. But you don’t have a fake badge or a suit-- I’ll call Bobby. Get his guy going on some fakes for you. It’ll take a minute so in the meantime we’re gonna have to take care of this one on our own, blondie.”

“Fine,” she says. “I’ll go to the crime scene as a cleaning service.”

Sam nods a few times. “Smart. Wait until we get back to brief you, though. We’ll have to question the kid, too. See what she knows.”

“How old is she?” Jess asks.

“Seventeen,” Dean reads off the newspaper clipping in his hand. 

(maybe we should leave her out of it. she’s grieving.)

“Okay. Uh, meet you in the parking lot in a sec, then, I gotta get cleaned up,” Sam says. Dean nods, and leaves.

Jess watches Sam unzip his duffel and fish out the cheap black suit he uses for undercover stuff. Watches him root around the motel’s closet for an ironing board and an iron and get to work on his wrinkled suit pants.

“Sam?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“Maybe we shouldn’t bother the poor kid,” Jess suggests. “It sounds like she’s been through a lot. Having to find her mom like that, and all.”

Sam glances up from the ironing board to meet her eyes for a second. “No one’s gonna blame you if you want to sit this one out. It is kind of personal, after all.”

“No, I don’t want to sit it out. I’m just saying. We don’t need to upset her more by asking her a bunch of probing questions.”

“Don’t you think she would want us to do what we need to do, to catch the thing that killed her mother?” Sam asks.

“Yeah. I just-- I mean, what is she even going to know that we can’t get from the cops?”

“I don’t like bugging people after they lose a loved one either, but sometimes you have to.” He finishes on his pants and unplugs the iron, kissing her cheek as he passes her. “Wanna start researching while you wait for us? See what you can dig up online?”

“Yeah, okay,” she says, turning away from him, pretending to be caught up in looking for something in her purse. 

He leaves a moment later. She sits down on the bed with her laptop and opens it, but it takes her a while to type anything into the search bar.

+

When the boys come back, they tell her they’re pretty sure it’s a ghoul.

“Not so rough to ice if you can give ‘em the old guillotine treatment,” Dean explains, loosening his tie. He unbuttons his shirt, revealing a Pink Floyd tee shirt and the same leather corded amulet he always wears underneath. “So now we just gotta find it. Easy in and out.”

“Is there any method to who ghouls target?” Jess asks. 

“Mm, yes and no.” Sam sighs, taking his tie off too. “Could be random. Could be ‘cause the ghoul wants to assume the vic’s identity.”

“What?”

“Like the skinwalker case we worked with your college pals,” Dean explains. He wriggles his eyebrows up and down, smirking a little bit. “Ghouls like to get face transplants too.”

“So we keep a look out for the vic. We should probably do a stake out on the daughter.”

Jess frowns. “You mean the ghoul is going to… come back to the crime scene, looking like the mom? What kind of sick fucking joke…”

“It’s ‘cause they like to play with their food,” Dean says with a shrug. “Probably going after the daughter next. They pick off families or groups one by one, typically.”

“So we need to keep her safe,” Sam agrees. “Let’s do the cleaning service thing-- take a look at the crime scene and see what we can get out of the kid.”

+

After a trip to the dollar store to pick up a couple cleaning supplies, Jess drives Sam’s car to the scene of the crime. She knocks.

For a moment, it doesn’t seem like anybody is going to answer. But then, right before she’s about to turn around and go back to the car, she hears footsteps.

The lock clicks. A teenage girl, face red from crying, opens the door.

“Hi,” Jess says, offering a warm smile. “I’m from the cleaning agency.”

“The what?” The girl asks, sniffling.

“I’m a crime scene cleaner,” she elaborates, the words sounding stupid as she says them-- crime scene cleaner? That can’t be a real job title. “I’m here to clean up. Now that the police have everything they need.”

“Oh,” the girl says. “Um, okay. Come in.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss.”

The girl shrugs.

“What’s your name?”

“Hailey.”

“Nice to meet you, Hailey. I’m Jessica. Once you show me to the room, I’ll get it cleaned up really quick, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

Hailey nods, and leads her up the stairs. It’s the last door down the hall, the doorway still laced up with CRIME SCENE tape. Jess ducks under it. She surveys the room. Nothing but a blood stain on the carpet.

(i guess i actually have to clean this up. if i even can)

She pulls on the rubber gloves and gets to work, dousing the stain with the cleaning product she had randomly grabbed at the store, letting it sit for a few minutes while she pokes around the rest of the room. The bed is still unmade, some clothes clumped up on the floor, a half-drunk glass of water on the nightstand.

Jess scrubs at the blood stain with the scrub brush she’d picked up. 

(it’s not working. why isn’t it working)

(wait this is stupid, you know how to get blood stains out.)

She gets some cold water from the bathroom next door and pours it onto the stain, blotting up what she can with a paper towel before raiding the medicine cabinets for some hydrogen peroxide. That does the job easily, and the stain lifts.

She’s just about to leave the room when she notices a scratch on the windowsill. Frowning, she peels the rubber cleaning gloves off her hands and goes to get a closer look. Some of the paint has chipped off. She opens the window-- the screen has been ripped out. She can see it on the ground outside, fallen behind a bush. And now that she’s looking for it, she notices a few scratches and paint chipped areas on the paint under the window, too. She takes a couple pictures with her Razr and texts them to Sam. Makes a mental note to check the rest of the house over really quick as she leaves to look for any other scratches and paint chips.

Phone back in her pocket, cleaning supplies back in the flimsy plastic caddy from the dollar store, Jess heads out of the room. “Hailey?” She calls out, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I’m done cleaning.”

Hailey emerges from her bedroom. Jess tries to avoid eye contact. Too much hurt in her eyes.

“Okay,” Hailey says. “Cool. Um, am I supposed to pay you?”

“No, no, that’s been taken care of,” Jess says. “I just wanted to, uh… well… my mom died really recently too. So I know how it feels.”

“Really?” 

“Yeah. There was a house fire,” she says, her left hand fisting around the handle of the cleaning caddy so hard the plastic digs into the flesh of her palms. “It’s really hard just losing your parent out of nowhere.”

“Yeah,” Hailey agrees, turning her eyes toward the floor. “Seriously out of nowhere. They don’t even have a single lead on who might have done it.”

“They don’t?”

“No. No one.”

“Do you have any ideas?”

Hailey seems to mull the question over for a moment before answering. “I thought maybe it was her ex boyfriend,” she says. “He lived with us for a few months last year before they broke up. He was a huge jerk. Um, but he lives in England now, and the police verified that he’s there right now, so he couldn’t have done it. It must have just been some… random thing. Some sick freak.”

“I’m so sorry,” Jess says again. She considers reaching for the girl, squeezing her shoulder to comfort her, but she doesn’t trust her own hand not to shake. The truth is, the longer she stands here, the more overwhelmed she feels. 

(what are you even supposed to do when your parents just die out of nowhere? how are you supposed to heal from that? at least hailey isn’t the one to blame for her mom dying. i’m the reason mine is dead.) 

(and you will never be able to save enough people to make up for that.)

Her ears feel cold.

“Jessica?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you okay?” Hailey asks.

Jess forces a smile. “Yeah! I’m gonna get going. I want to leave my number for you, though. We have a comprehensive cleaning guarantee so if you notice that I missed a spot, we’ll come back to finish the job.”

“Okay.”

Thanking her lucky stars that this girl isn’t old enough to be suspicious by the fact that Jess doesn’t offer a business card, she writes her phone number on a post it note with ner name and hands it to Hailey. With a final reassuring smile, she leaves. 

She’s already restless as she starts Sam’s car and pulls out of her parking spot. Maybe working the case will make her feel better. She dials Sam’s phone and holds her Razr to her ear with her left hand, her right hand on the steering wheel.

“Hey,” he answers after the second ring.

“Hey. Did you see the pictures I sent you?”

“Reception in this motel is really bad. They’re still downloading. What’s up?”

“Scratch marks all along the window sill,” Jess explains. “And a few down the house. Whatever killed that lady climbed up the wall, ripped the screen off the window, and then must’ve come out the same way.”

“Huh,” Sam exhales. “Sounds more and more like a ghoul by the minute. Was there a cat in there?”

“Huh?”

“You sound like you need to sneeze. Allergies?”

She grits her teeth hard for a second. Looks at herself in the rearview mirror. Takes in her glassy eyes. Then she shifts her gaze, staring down the street as she drives. “Yeah,” she lies. “There was a cat.”

“That’s one thing you and my brother have in common. He’s allergic to cats too.”

“Ha.”

“So are you coming back to the motel?”

“No,” she answers. “I’m gonna hit up the local library and see if there’s anything like this in recent newspapers. Maybe it’s not just a one-time thing.”

“Oh,” Sam says, surprise in his voice. “Uh, okay, yeah. Let me know if you find anything out. Dean’s gonna stake out the house in the Impala so make sure you keep your cell on.”

“Copy that,” she says. “Talk to you later.” She hangs up before he can say goodbye. Her throat has felt like it was closing up for the whole conversation, and now she’s running on fumes.

+

“Dean. Stop. It’s just ice.”

Huffing a little, Dean stops sucking on the empty straw and sets his McDonald's Sprite cup down in the cupholder. “Didn’t realize trying to get my money’s worth was a crime against Sam-kind. Who peed in your cereal?”

“No one. Jerk.”

“Bitch.”

Jess ignores the boys, staring out the window at the house. The late winter sun has slipped below the horizon even though it’s barely dinner time, and only one window of the house is lit up-- the girl’s room.

“It seems kind of weird that she’s staying in the house,” Jess comments. “She’s just a kid.”

“Eh, she’s like seventeen, I think a lot of kids that age are Lord of the Flies-ing it,” Dean dismisses. “I’m sure she’ll be fine. Aside from the ghoul situation and all. But once we take care of that.”

“You’d think the authorities would send her off to stay with family.”

“Maybe she doesn’t have any family,” Sam says.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

The three of them watch in silence for a while, nothing but the lull of cars driving past, the distant call of barking dogs or arguing neighbors. 

(we should have gotten binoculars or something, jess thinks, wishing she could see into the girl’s bedroom window, just in case)

“How certain are we that this thing is coming back?” Jess asks.

“Medium,” Dean shrugs.

“It’s the only lead we really have,” Sam points out.

She nods. 

They manage to stay awake in turns until sunrise, staring at the house, waiting for something that never comes. But when they repeat the stakeout the next night, that changes a few hours into the night.

“Jess? Wake up.”

She pulls air into her lungs, blinking awake, and slowly lifts her head off Sam’s shoulder. She unmats that side of her hair with her fingers.

“Did it come back?”

“Yeah.” 

“How do you know? What does it look like?” She asks, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

She jumps a little as the Impala’s trunk slams shut. Sam reaches for the door handle and slides out of the back seat as he answers. “The mom.”

“Oh, shit.”

(that poor girl. what the fuck.)

“Yeah. We gotta move.”

Dean tosses Jess a gun as she gets out of the car, and she catches it deftly. A small black pistol. Something she barely knows how to use.

“Silver bullets,” Dean says. “Won’t kill it, but it’ll slow down. Come on.”

“Is it in the house yet?”

“Looked like it was goin’ round back.” He’s already running for the house. She and Sam catch up easily.

“It went up the window last time,” Jess mentions. “Like, scaled the house.”

“Dammit,” Dean huffs as he tries the doorknob. “Locked.”

“It’s probably already inside,” Sam says, reaching into his pocket for something; a pair of long, straight pins. He starts picking the lock.

(okay, how the hell does he know how to do that)

“Hurry up, Sammy,” Dean instructs.

The lock clicks open a moment later.

“Jess, find the girl. Sam, other side of the top floor. I’ll look around down here.”

They follow Dean’s instructions, running up the stairs. The hall is mostly dark. But Hailey must have left the bathroom light on, and with its door ajar, the sparse light washes into the hall just enough to see.

“Hailey?” Jess calls out. “Hailey!”

A door knob jiggles. The mom’s room. The room Jess had cleaned up yesterday.

“I’m going into her room,” Jess says, staring at the opening door. “You good?”

“I’m good.” Sam holds his ivory-handled gun at the ready.

“Hailey?” Jess calls again as she makes it to the girl’s bedroom. She opens the doorknob cautiously, the black gun still in her right hand. She slips in quickly and shuts the door behind her. It has a lock; she flicks it shut. Reaches for the light switch.

But the room is empty.

“Shit,” Jess mutters. She looks around. Window closed tight. Bed empty. 

Closet.

(if you were alone in your house and you thought there was an intruder, you would hide in the closet.)

“Hailey,” Jess says, her heart thudding fast, “I’m here to help you. It’s gonna be okay. I’m-- uh, from the cleaning agency? Except I’m not a maid. I’m going to open the closet door, okay? Don’t panic.”

Slowly, she reaches for it, nudging the gun into the waistband of her jeans so it won’t scare the girl. She opens the door. 

Hailey is there, just as Jess had thought, clutching a pair of scissors, looking like she’s just seen a ghost.

“Hey,” Jess says gently. “You okay?”

“What are you doing here?” Hailey squeaks out.

“We’re here to help you,” Jess says. 

“Who even are you? If you’re not a maid? What’s going on?”

Jess is about to reply. But she hears a thud from the hall. She feels her heart go cold.

“Stay here,” she says tightly. 

“Who’s in my house?”

Jess ignores her. Grabs the gun back from her jeans. Throws the door open.

Sam is on the ground, and the ghoul is coming straight for her.

Fumbling with the gun, Jess makes an uncertain shot. The silver bullet lodges in the ghoul’s forearm, but it doesn’t seem to do anything. Sam is crumpled, eyes closed.

“Dean!” Jess screams. 

She hears his boots on the stairs a second later. Just in time for the ghoul to get to her. She twists away, planting another bullet in its chin-- this one sends the creature stumbling a little. 

It feels insane to shoot someone who looks like a person. Feels every kind of wrong there is. But with Sam on the floor in front of her and a scared kid behind her, the choice comes easily to Jess.

And then Dean is up the stairs, and he lodges a pair of silver bullets in the ghoul’s head and neck. It falls to the floor.

She runs to Sam and all but throws herself at him. “Sam? Honey? You with me?” She pleads, reaching for his face, cupping his cheek in her hand. She presses her other hand to his chest. He has a pulse.

“Get him outta here,” Dean grunts as he shoves the ghoul down.

“I can’t fucking carry him,” Jess snaps back.

“Fuck.” Dean buries another pair of bullets in the creature, and then fumbles for a long knife. Deftly, he slices the creature’s head off. It goes rolling into the bathroom. 

Hailey screams.

Jess’ head all but spins to look at her. “Hailey, go back in your room.”

“That’s my-- my--” she screams again, clutching at her face with her hands. The crewneck sweatshirt she’s wearing is splattered with blood. She must have been standing there for a minute.

“It ain’t your mom, kid,” Dean says.

“It’s the thing that killed her,” Jess adds. “It was coming to kill you.”

“Who are you people?” Hailey demands, voice squeaky and broken.

“We take care of things like this. Stop them from hurting people,” Jess says. Then, with a spike in her throat, she remembers Sam is unconscious. She turns back to him. Smacks his cheek lightly. “Sam? Come on, come on--”

“Sammy. Come back to us,” Dean adds, crossing the space between them. He leans down and smacks his brother in the face.

With a gasp, Sam wakes up, convulsing a little in Jess’ arms. 

“Shh,” she breathes, cradling his head in her arms, “don’t move. That thing knocked you out.”

“Came outta nowhere,” he explains blearily. He blinks hard, and his eyes fall on the decapitated ghoul before them. “Good job.”

“Good job?” Hailey screams. “Good job? That’s my mom!”

Gently, Jess sets Sam’s head down. She stands. Lets her feet carry her to the girl, adrenaline coursing through her veins hard, numbing her steps a little. “It’s not your mom, sweetheart,” she says gently. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Hailey rakes at her face with her hands, choking on sobs. Without thinking about it, Jess steps closer to her, and wraps her into a hug.

“It’s okay,” she says quietly, leaning down so she doesn’t tower over the girl, who can’t be more than five and a half feet tall. 

The girl sobs. Jess can hear the boys behind her, just barely, both trying to catch their breath.

+

With the ghoul’s body buried behind shed out back, and Sam having reasonably proved to Jess and Dean that he doesn’t have a concussion, the three of them clean up the blood and get the place gore-free by sunrise.

Hailey walks them down to their car, a calmer look across her tear-stained features.

“Do you have somewhere you can go?” Jess asks gently. “So you aren’t staying in this house all alone?”

“My dad is on the way to come get me,” she says with a sigh. “He lives in Indiana so it’s just taking a couple days. But I’ll be fine.”

“Do you have friends to maybe stay with in the meantime?” Sam asks.

“Yeah. I might… do that.”

“You should,” Jess says. “You shouldn’t have to be alone after what you’ve been through.”

Hailey nods a few times, her eyes turned to the ground. “Thanks. Uh, for everything. I guess I owe you guys my life.”

“Ahh, don’t sweat it, kid,” Dean says. “Just doin’ our job.”

“You really just… hunt monsters?”

“It’s complicated,” Jess hears herself say, smiling sadly. “I’m sorry you had to find out about it.”

“It’s okay,” Hailey says. She gathers her long hair into her hands and pulls it over one shoulder. “Really, though. Thanks.”

“Catch you on the flip,” Dean says. “We gotta get outta here. Sammy? Jess?”

“Bye, Hailey,” Jess says.

“Bye.”

The three of them pile into the Impala, and Dean starts it up, easily pulling out of his parallel park job and into the street. 

“You sure you don’t need to hit up the hospital, Sammy?” He asks after a few moments’ quiet.

“Yeah, I’m sure, Dean. I’m fine.”

“Wouldn’t hurt to get checked out,” Jess comments.

Sam glances over his shoulder at the back seat, smiling a tiny bit. Then he looks at his brother. “Really? So now I get to be coddled by my big brother and my girlfriend, at the same time?”

“It’s not coddling,” Dean dismisses. “Shut up.”

Jess means to laugh, but instead she grimaces.

+

As she’s getting the last of her stuff from the motel room moments later, she catches fragments of the boys’ conversation through the open motel door.

She hears Dean shut the Impala’s trunk as Sam speaks.

“Can you please just say something?”

“I dunno, Sammy,” Dean’s voice comes. “I don’t wanna get involved in your relationship.”

“It’s not getting involved in my relationship, dude.”

“So you just don’t want her to get mad at you? That it?”

Jess freezes, duffel half zipped, and listens closer.

“No, man, you don’t understand.”

“Just tell her how you feel and leave me out of it.” 

“She’ll talk me out of it,” Sam insists. “She could talk me out of or into anything.”

“Ha. Whipped.”

“It’s not a bad thing. I love her. I just need her to actually go with this one and I don’t think I can make her.”

“You sound like you’re in the tenth grade right now, you know that?”

“Dean,” Sam huffs.

“Fine. I’ll say something. I’ll help you out.”

“Thanks.”

Jess zips her bag shut, frowning a little. Her chest tightens as she walks right into it a moment later.

“Yo, blondie,” Dean says. “I got another case lined up in Lawrence, Kansas.”

“Where you guys were born,” Jess says.

“Yeah. Back to the proverbial homeland. Thing is, I think you should sit this one out.”

She blinks. Replays the conversation she’d overheard. “Why?”

“You ain’t on your a-game.”

(well yeah, that’s true, but it’s not like you would notice, dean. you don’t know me.)

She looks to Sam’s eyes, which are apologetic, almost guilty. “I’m sorry, baby,” he says. “I agree though. You need a breather.”

“A breather,” she repeats. “What I need is to find the thing that killed my parents and tried to kill me.”

“Yeah, and we’re still workin’ on that,” Dean says. “Scout’s honor. This is personal for us too, remember.”

Sam nods several times.

“So, what, you want me to go sit around a motel room while you two solve a case without me?” She asks.

“I can go with you, if you want,” Sam offers. 

She shakes her head. “Nah. Sounds like you guys have work to do.”

“Jess, baby, don’t be like that,” he pleads. 

“What exactly did I do that makes you think I’m not on my A-game?” She asks, looking from Sam to Dean. Her tone a little shakier than she wants it. She swallows.

“Crying,” Dean suggests. “Getting a little close with that kid.”

“I’m sorry I’m not full of weirdo repressed masculine man feelings like you guys, but I’m not going to just not comfort a kid who just lost her mother,” Jess says.

“I am not full of weirdo repressed masculine man feelings. I am perfectly normal,” Dean argues. He shakes his head. Reaches for the Impala door. “We’ll buzz ya when we finish up in Lawrence. Consider this paid time off.”

“You don’t pay me.”

“Yeah, well, with an attitude like that, I ain’t gonna start anytime soon. Sammy?”

“I’m sorry, Jess,” he says. “It’s just a few days. Just go relax somewhere.”

“Fine,” she says tightly. “Fine. Keep me updated.”

“Yeah, absolutely. It’s really just a few days. A week, tops. Maybe you could go see friends from Stanford or something.” He closes the space between them with a single long step and hugs her. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she says. “But I’m annoyed at you. So beat it.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He kisses her forehead, hands her the keys to his car, and goes for the Impala’s passenger seat.

She watches the Winchester boys drive away. Sighing, she picks up her duffel off the sidewalk and tosses it into the back seat of Sam’s car. She tucks herself into the driver’s seat, turns on the radio, and heads to the nearest highway exit. She’s going west.

+

Nine hours of straight driving later, she stops at a motel in Nevada. Watches a couple episodes of The Office, picks up some chicken strips and a salad from a local drive-in for dinner, and eventually falls asleep.

In the morning she sets out on the last six hours of the drive with a grocery store muffin, a banana, and a coffee in the cupholders. She makes it to the Moore family cabin at Lake Tahoe around two in the afternoon. Unlocks it, lets herself in. It’s just how she remembers it, though she hasn’t been in a year and a half-- canoe up on the rafters, old green leather couch, cherry wood coffee table in front of the big stone fireplace. It smells just how it’s supposed to. For a moment, just being in her family’s vacation home feels like a warm hug, like safety, like sureness. But then she remembers that her parents are dead, and her boyfriend ditched her, and she’s annoyed all over again.

The cabin is on the colder side, too, since it’s been sitting empty all winter, with the heating turned off. Spring is starting to form around the lake, but there’s still a leftover chill. She gets a fire going and turns the heater on before going back out to the car to get her stuff.

Last time she was here, it was with Sam, her parents, and her parents’ best friends, a couple who were like an aunt and uncle to her growing up. They’d had barbecues and gone water skiing and drank beer on the dock. She and Sam had started every day with a sunrise swim, splashing each other with the cold lake water, laughing, sitting out in the sun to dry off after. If she’d known it was the last normal family vacation she would ever have--

She shakes her head. Pushes her hair back. 

Her room is how she’d left it-- the bed made with a lilac duvet and matching pillows, the log dresser with spare sheets and towels and swimsuits in its drawers, the nightstand with its outdated ‘80s glass lamp. The cork board full of vacation pictures from over the years. She and her parents. She and Sam. A yearbook of family friends and relatives. She reaches for one of just her mom and dad, from when she was maybe nine years old. Runs her thumb along its edge.

A bead of blood animates on the pad of her thumb. Paper cut.

The cabin is made of trees that look like they were felled right then and there. She runs her hand over the ridges of the wall, ignoring the helping of blood, holding her thumb up so she doesn't trail it on the wood.

Her parents may be dead, her childhood home destroyed, her college apartment burnt to bits, her boyfriend off with his brother-- but at least she still has the lakehouse.

+

She’d picked up stuff to make quesadillas, some fruit, bread and peanut butter, a couple bottles of cheap white wine, and supplies to make brownies at the store. She tucks the haul away into the pantry and fills up the Brita her parents kept in the cupboard by the fridge. She flips through an old issue of Vogue magazine while she eats dinner, takes a stupidly long shower, and falls asleep early.

Dusting the main floor up, cleaning all three bathrooms, and baking brownies only fill up the first couple hours of the morning.

No cable, no internet, but there’s an extensive collection of VHS tapes and plenty of books tucked away in various places. She rifles through them. 1980s family movies, a couple seasons of Seinfield, some British romcoms-- but she has never been the type to loaf around watching TV, and she doesn’t feel like reading. So she wanders the lakehouse and looks for something to do.

She heads back upstairs and checks all five of the bedrooms out for messes or unmade beds. The second bedroom is basically a closet with twin bunk beds. The third and fourth each have queens. The last bedroom is where her parents stayed. She hesitates at the door.

(you don’t have to go in. you could like, board it up, or put a shelf in front of it.)

She takes the doorknob in her hand, an outdated shiny gold number with a skeleton keyhole. It feels cold. She knows by heart that this door will creak when she opens it.

(you should go in.)

She does.

It’s the biggest bedroom in the house, with its own bathroom and sliding doors out to a small balcony. The room is stocked with its own fireplace and a little couch with end tables, a closet and a queen bed with mismatched nightstands. The bed is stripped. Her mother always said it’s best to leave the bedding in a garbage bag in the closet-- it might get moth eaten or dusty otherwise. This way you know it’s fresh, and there’s nothing creepy hiding between the sheets. Her father had laughed at this. 

Jess swallows a lump in her throat as she regards the bare bed. Just the way her parents left it. For the last time.

They’d been up here just a few months ago, making the last of their usual few trips over the summer. They had brought a bunch of their friends-- so many that the tiny bunkbed room was in use, and one of the couples even had to bring their RV to park outside. They had all gotten drunk on cosmos and frozen margaritas, played card games, gone out in the boat, taken a host of pink-faced blurry pictures that her mother had shown her when she’d seen them for the last time over their Labor Day weekend trip to Palo Alto.

She exhales hard. 

(things are never ever going to be the same so you should just get used to it and deal with it.)

A change it is.

+

She takes the bed frame apart. Hauls the mattress downstairs and into the back mudroom for temporary storage. She tracks down every book she can find in the house, and the scattered VHS tapes too, and organizes them into piles. It can be a library. The Dennis and Kathleen Moore Memorial Library. Mem-Moore-ial library. Maybe she’ll make a silly little sign. The thought almost makes her laugh.

She makes a list of things the room needs-- a couple bookshelves, some frames, a card table with chairs, a couple arm chairs with lamps for reading. A two-day tour of all the thrift stores within an hour’s drive turns up most of these things, mismatched, homey. She disinfects them and hauls them up to the room and sets the place up. Slides a few pictures of her parents into the frames to hang on the wall by the window.

It could use more books. Only one of the three shelves is even somewhat full. She hits up the thrift stores again, and any used bookstores the phone book turns up, and comes home with two boxes full of books. Anything that had seemed vaguely supernatural, vaguely related to what the Winchester boys always call ‘lore’, she buys. She organizes them by category and within a few days the room is perfect. 

With that out of her system, she’s able to relax enough to read. She pours through three of the lore books in their entirety before, as Dean Winchester would put it, something goes bump in the night.

+

Jessica’s Razr buzzes to life, pulling her out of her reading fugue. She turns the exorcism lore book upside down to keep her place and reaches to answer the call.

“Hello?”

“Hey Jess!”

“Hey, Sam. How’s the hunt?” She asks, standing up, stretching her shoulders a little.

“All done. I’ll tell you about it later. I have, uh…” his voice fades out for a moment, and she can practically see the pull of his eyebrows before he speaks again. “I have a lot of stuff to tell you about. But not over the phone. Um, where are you?”

“The lakehouse in Tahoe,” she answers. “Sorry. I thought I told you.”

“No worries. We’re going to head over. Probably get there day after tomorrow. Dean is hungover so he doesn’t wanna drive.”

“Hungover?” She asks, laughing a little.

“Yeah, he did the whole bury your feelings in whiskey thing.”

“Feelings? Did the hunt not go okay?”

“No, no, it was fine, just, uh… a little close to home. Figuratively and literally. Anyway, what have you been up to?”

Something thumps against the glass of the sliding door behind her. She turns around. Nothing.

(must’ve been a bird outside)

“Reading,” she answers a beat too late. “Studying up on demons and stuff.”

“Oh,” Sam answers, sounding kind of surprised. “Nice. I better let you go. Dean is waking up and he’s gonna want a coffee run.”

“Okay. Love you.”

“I love you too. See you soon.” Sam hangs up, so she snaps her phone shut and slides it back into the pocket of her jeans.

Slowly, she wanders toward the glass door. If a bird kamikaze’d into the door, it would have landed on the balcony, she figures. But when she looks, there’s nothing. No sign anything was there at all.

(i’ve been on my own too long)

She hasn’t seen another person since the thrift store tour a couple days ago. It’s been almost a full week since she’s seen the Winchester boys. She shakes her head and goes back to her book.

The only previous ideas she had about exorcism were from the movie-- creepy upside down gymnastics, screaming, vomit. None of those things appear in the lore book, but she does have to do a significant amount of reading between the lines to pick up on what’s real and what isn’t. It’s framed as rumors. Legends. Myths. After a few weeks hunting with the boys, she can tell which ones are fabricated and which ones are based in reality. She starts a notebook to keep track of what she’s learning. Mutters the exorcism to herself in the shower or does the dishes. Sam and Dean have it committed to memory. She figures she should too, if she wants to be a real hunter.

Not that she wants to be a real hunter. It’s just that she has a job to do. 

Another thunk against glass. 

She starts a little, dropping the pen that had been in her hand. 

“Hello?”

Thunk.

She stands up. Backs toward the wall. 

(gun, the gun dean gave me, why did i leave it in the car oh my god)

Thunk.

(mom was right this place really is haunted)

She stares at the glass sliding door. Watches a foggy handprint materialize. It dissipates in another second.

“Um, the power of Christ compels you?” She hazards.

Silence weighs over the bedroom turned library. She blinks a few times. Backs out of the room, shutting the door. Salt? Salt.

She finds some in the pantry downstairs. (where do i even put it, though? windows and doors? was the handprint from inside or outside?)

(okay. pull it together, moore. figure it out. sam and his brother will be here tomorrow night and they can help you and it’ll all be fine.)

Jess runs back into the library for her phone, her notebook, and the lore book. Then she slams the door shut and lines the base of it with salt. 

(can ghosts come through walls?)

The ghost they’d hunted, it had moved through water pipes. So, she figures, ghosts can probably do whatever. But she just has the one canister of table salt, and it isn’t even full.

(dean said to trap yourself inside a salt circle if necessary but like i need to hunt this thing if it is a ghost)

(no it’s definitely a ghost)

The intuition almost hurts. Almost sends a spike down her spine, like a shock, clearer with each realization. That girl she’d babysat, that was just the beginning. She knows for a fact there’s a ghost in her family’s vacation home. And as she gets the gun from Sam’s glove box and loads it with more salt rounds, she realizes out of nothing that the ghost hasn’t been here long.

+

In the morning she talks to Sam on the phone again, briefly, and he lets her know that they’re just now leaving Kansas. They’ll be a day later than she’d anticipated.

She meant to avoid the library until the Winchester boys show up. But as she lets herself out of the steamed-over bathroom, still drying her damp curls with a towel, it’s almost like the room has this sense of heat. She can feel it from behind the door. Over the salt line. Hotter than the steamy bathroom.

(did i leave a fire in the fireplace?)

(obviously not because i never set one. and it would have gone out by now anyway)

She sighs slowly, watching the still door, scrunching her hair dry. It’s pulling her. It wants her to come in.

(this is some kind of a trap.)

(no it’s not. you know it isn’t)

She drops the towel right then and there and wanders toward the door, hands fisted in high alert, a few drips of water still springing from her hair. 

(don’t break the salt line, like dean said)

She carefully opens the door over it and steps over it. 

“Is anyone in here?” She asks, turning her eyes around the room from one corner to another. The en suite bathroom door is closed. So is the closet door. She pads over to them slowly, and opens them one by one, bracing herself for a monster or a killer clown to spring out at her-- but nothing. Just some of her parents’ things in the closet, and just the bathroom in the bathroom.

Sighing, she goes back into the hall and retrieves the towel to put it in the wash. She sits down at the big dining table downstairs, the backdrop of hundreds of game nights and dinners with her parents and their friends and whoever else happened to be at the lakehouse at any given time. Slowly, she eats a cut up pear and some peanut butter toast, sips some coffee. 

So it’s recent. So the ghost wasn’t always here. The ghost her mother had alleged in her youth, well, that must be a different story all together, if it even exists. This thing, if it even is a ghost, this presence-- it’s new. Like, last couple days new.

So what could have brought it in? An object? A spell? Had someone died on the property within the last couple days, without Jess noticing?

(no. you would know if someone died. you would know.)

(it would hurt and you would know.)

She blinks at the toast crumbs on the otherwise empty plate in front of her. Blinks in confusion.

(because it’s getting worse and it’s going to continue getting worse, this thing in your head, and you need to talk to sam about it so he can help, but too bad sam is fucked up too)

She opens her mouth as if to speak into the empty room. Sam shouldn’t be fucked up. Maybe the voice in her head is an unreliable narrator.

Jess wonders, for the first time, if there is something, some entity, taking up space in her mind-- if these aren’t just her own intuitive thoughts. If there’s something hiding behind some quiet part of her consciousness. Giving her these unearned notions.

No. Bigger fish. She puts the plate in the sink and washes her hands and finishes her coffee and she goes back up to the library room.

Something new. An object a spirit could tether to. Start there.

(the furniture, the books, those are new)

She turns her gaze toward the second bookshelf, the one she’d stocked with the occult lore books. There are around thirty-five of them, all secondhand, from various thrift stores and used book stores. That’s a lot of sifting to do.

(but if there’s a spirit attached to a book, it would have had to be an important book to that person when they were alive. it might be annotated. or have a name inside.)

She hadn’t opened many of the books. Maybe five total. This is a start.

So she goes downstairs for a second cup of coffee and the kitchen radio. She plugs it in and sets it on the card table in the library, and pulls all the newly-bought lore books, and she starts sifting through them to the soundtrack of a Canadian alt-rock channel.

A lot of them have annotations or pencil marks or a name inside. Some of them even have a library stamp. But the twelfth or thirteenth book she picks up is the one that gives her pause. 

It feels more solid in her hand. Feels more real. Like it’s there, absolutely claiming its space, like it wants to burrow the soft flesh of her palm open and make a grizzly home inside her veins.

She drops it without really meaning to. It lands on the floor, falling under the card table. She shakes her hands off as if it left some kind of residue on her skin, her shoulders shivering a little. Almost knocking the cup over, she reaches for her coffee to take a sip or two. The strong taste of it, the warmth, it grounds her at least by a few degrees. She sets the cup down slowly, staring at the wall, letting her mind work through what just happened. Replays the feeling.

The rest of the books can go back in their shelf. She makes slow work of this, not terribly eager to pick up that one book a second time.

(how did i not notice that when i picked it up in the store? or when i picked it up to put it away?)

(because you weren’t looking. not the way you’re looking now.)

Frowning hard, goosebumps rising on her arms, she finally sits back down, reaches for the floor to retrieve the book, and takes a better look at it. It’s a book from the early 1990s, a worn paperback titled Choctaw Legend: Monsters and Myths. Maybe about three hundred pages, it’s not the most eye-catching book in the haul, and the spine is badly cracked. When she opens it, the book falls to page 194, the beginning of the chapter called The Origin of Poison. Jessica shivers again. 

The inside cover yields no name, nor a library stamp, nor anything else that suggests ownership. She flips through the whole book, page by page. Not a single pencil mark. No dog-eared pages. No evidence it’s been opened before today at all, save for the worn spine and the softened edges.

She sighs, bunching her still-damp hair into her hands, letting it fall down her back. It had seemed so obvious. So clear. But now there’s nothing.

(come on, she thinks to herself. maybe you can nudge it open. like poke and prod at the thing inside your head that Just Knows Things until it spits out an answer.)

But the concept is too loose, too liquid, for her to grasp onto. She wouldn’t know how to do this. The power wields itself on its own terms.

She was going to make another batch of brownies for the boys, since they’re coming tomorrow. And it’s a clear day, warm thanks to the beginnings of spring-- she figures she’ll take a walk too. Some fresh air and space from this book might do her well.

+

After she’s done baking and taking a walk, she takes her laptop to a diner with internet. She gets a booth at the end of the restaurant, orders a chicken caesar salad and a lemonade. She takes her time eating, researching as she does.

The author of the Choctaw legends book is a Native woman named Elaine Wolf from Mississippi. She’s alive and well, 57 years old, three kids and a husband. Jessica reads everything she’s able to dig up on the woman. Finds her blog and a transcript of a radio interview and an essay she wrote about growing up on a Choctaw reservation. She’s a professor of literature at University of Houston in Texas who wrote the legends book as a passion project to help preserve her culture. 

(collaborators maybe.)

She flips open her Razr to look at the picture she’d taken of the book cover, unwilling to carry it with her. Another name is listed; Frank Wolf. It takes Jess longer to track down anything about this name, but eventually she finds his obituary. He was Elaine’s father. He helped her compile the Choctaw lore, told her the stories he’d grown up with. 

(maybe it’s him then. sounds like the book was important to their family.)

“Can I get you anything else, hon, or are you ready for the check?”

Jess jumps a little, not having seen the waitress approach from over her computer screen. She smiles quickly, hoping the waitress didn’t notice the initial reaction. “Yeah. That’d be great. Thank you.”

“Was your food okay?”

“It was great.”

“Oh, I’m glad.” The waitress takes her plate and empty glass and disappears toward the kitchen.

Taking a breath to center herself, Jess finishes reading the obituary. A thought crosses her mind. She types in another Google search: Choctaw burial rituals.

They bury their dead in the sitting position.

(are you seriously considering driving to mississippi to dig up an old native man and burn his bones? disrespecting his culture’s burial tradition? isn’t that a little colonist of you?)

Jess pushes her hair off her face. She’d taken two semesters of Native American Studies in college, but even if she hadn’t, she knows that death rituals are one of the most important elements of any culture.

(last resort.)

The waitress brings her check. She pays and packs up her laptop into her backpack, heading back to the lakehouse, frustrated at the lack of solid answers.

She parks Sam’s blue ‘83 Chevy Cavalier and heads back inside, locking the door behind her. Feeling kind of stupid, she flops down on the big green couch in front of the fireplace, sighing.

(fine. i’ll call sam for advice. he knows more about this stuff than i do.)

She dials his cell, leans back, and waits for an answer.

One comes after four or five rings. But it’s not Sam’s voice. It’s his brother.

“Hey, Malibu Barbie,” Dean says. “Bitch boy is driving and he won’t talk on the phone while he’s driving ‘cause he’s a bitch.”

“Dean--” Sam’s exasperated voice comes distantly. A smile flickers at Jess’ lips.

“I’ll put you on speaker,” Dean says. “There ya go.”

“Hi, baby. How’s it going?” Sam asks.

“Hey,” she says. She does a split second of Winchester brother math. Comes to a quick conclusion. “Great. Just calling to check in,” she lies. “See how far away you are.”

“We’re just getting into Nevada,” Dean answers. “Probably six, seven hours left of driving. We’ll crank out a few more this evening and then get to you in the early afternoon tomorrow.”

“Cool,” she says. (i’m not going to admit defeat to dean winchester.)

“What are you up to?” Sam asks.

“Uh, just got back from a walk. I might organize some books in the library now.”

“The lakehouse has a library?”

“I turned one of the bedrooms into one,” she explains. “I figure it’s my place now. I can do what I want with it.”

“Ha. Glad my nerd brother found a nerd lady,” Dean quips. 

Jess rolls her eyes.

“That’s awesome,” Sam says, ignoring his brother easily. “I can’t wait to see it. We’re pretty beat, so we might wanna stick around the lakehouse for a few more days, if you don’t mind.”

“Yeah, sure, no problem. I’ve been keeping an eye on local papers. There’s nothing around here that sounds like us anyway.”

“Glad the dark side takes time off too,” Dean says.

“Hey, I’ll let you guys go. Drive safe.”

“Okay. Love you,” Sam says.

“Love you too. Bye.” She hangs up, tossing her phone onto the coffee table, and sighs.

If she’d gotten Sam alone, she would have run the situation by him. But for now she’s stuck on her own.

So she heads back up the stairs and crosses the salt line into the library. The Choctaw lore book is still sitting on the table. “Frank? Are you here?” She asks cautiously, her back to a wall. “Frank Wolf?”

Nothing.

“I want to help you,” she says. “I guess you’re stuck. Or you have unfinished business. If you can communicate with me somehow, I can try to sort through it with you.”

Nothing.

“Fuck,” she mutters under her breath. “Whatever.”

The hand against the window again. She starts. 

“Frank?”

“My name isn’t Frank.”

All the warmth that had ever been in the room, left from the Moore family’s happy memories or from the sunlight through the window-- it hardens and splinters into nothing. She feels her pulse smack in her chest, and she reaches for Dean’s gun, which she’d left on the table. “Who are you?”

It had been a teenager speaking. A boy whose voice had started to deepen, but had been cut off before it found its final strength. A kid’s voice, still uncertain, distant, like it was coming from several feet away. 

“Hello?” She says again, turning her eyes around the room, looking for something that isn’t there. “Why do you keep hitting the window? Why are you attached to a book about Choctaw legend?”

“I’m not.”

She blinks. Lowers the gun, reaches for the book again. It still feels heavy, alive, hot with something that aches. It feels haunted.

“Who are you?” 

Nothing.

She stays standing there for a long time, waiting, listening. But no voice returns, and no hand hits against the glass door.

Frustrated, she shuts the haunted book into the library and she goes to watch one of the old VHS tapes to get her mind off it.

+

Having had a fitful night, she wakes up late, throat dry and hoarse. She stumbles into the bathroom, sleep still heavy in her bones, and she leans down to drink from the sink.

(i don’t want to be here with a ghost situation i can’t seem to solve. this is so stupid.)

(i should go to the store anyway. get stuff to make lunch and dinner. the boys are going to be hungry when they get here. maybe grab some beer too, since i don’t think they’re going to want to drink that last bottle of riesling.)

Perfect. That will eat up some time. She puts on some makeup, fixes her hair, gets dressed in jeans and a sweater, and takes Sam’s car to the grocery store. She takes her time picking out bananas, bread, cereal, almond milk, and ingredients to make chicken parmesan and roasted broccoli for dinner. Sam’s favorite. She hasn’t seen Dean eat much other than burgers, McDonald’s breakfast, Chinese takeout, or pizza, so hopefully he can deal with chicken and broccoli. At least there are brownies for dessert. Those tend to be a major crowd pleaser, especially her recipe, passed down from her grandmother. Extra vanilla, a tablespoon of instant coffee, a few drops of almond extract-- you won’t taste it, but it rounds out the richness of the chocolate.

She makes it home around eleven and puts the groceries away. Washes the few accumulated dishes for good measure. Cleans the kitchen up, as if two boys who grew up in motels are going to notice or care.

Then she drags herself back to the library. Stands over the table. Stares down at the book. Weighs her options between waiting for Sam to come help her, or puzzling over it by herself a little bit more.

(wait. there’s something on the floor.)

Frowning, she leans down to reach for it. A single piece of paper, folded up small. Once it’s in her hands, she realizes it’s torn from the book-- the blank piece that sometimes comes in the front of a paperback. She hadn’t noticed it missing. Must have been a clean tear.

She unfolds it, her heart thudding all over again. Delicate teenage handwriting in faded pencil.

Joey,

I found out what you did. Sarah told me. She saw you and Lizzie together by the bleachers, kissing. I know she wouldn’t lie to me. I can’t believe you would do that to me. I loved you, but you broke my heart. Never talk to me again. Don’t even look at me again. I’m leaving this note because I can’t stand the thought of hearing your stupid voice or seeing your stupid face. Here’s your stupid book back. I’d rather fail the book report than keep it for one second longer.

Go to hell.  
-Jenna

“Joey,” Jess mutters to herself. She looks up from the worn note. “Joey?”

(it must have fallen out of the book.)

She jumps as a handprint smacks against the window.

“Joey, it’s okay,” she says. 

But then it isn’t. She feels hot, burning hot, like she’s inside an oven. And then it’s dark. She’s driving through a dark suburban street somewhere in rural Nevada and she’s angry. She’s furious. And so, so, so hurt. One stupid mistake and everything is ruined. 

She can’t think straight. The car skids, and she can’t stop it, and she barrels nose first into an empty city bus on its way back to the lot. 

The car flips onto its side. The seatbelt chokes her, and she hangs there, falling apart, her mind whirling. She doesn’t feel any pain, just a neutral expression of torn flesh, of a breaking brain. The car is smoking. The suburban sky is closing in on her, suffocating, angrier and angrier. 

Jessica presses her hand against the car window in desperation. Hits it.

But she’s bleeding in her brain. And though she can’t feel the pain of it, she feels herself die. She feels Joey die.

And then she’s gasping for air, the library setting in around her. She’s on the floor, slumped against the wall, like someone dropped her there. She tries to move her arms. Nothing.

“She broke up with you, and you went for a drive, but you had only gotten your licence a month before,” she gasps. “And you sucked at driving. You barely passed the test. And you were upset. So you got into an accident, and you died. Your name is Joseph Howardson. You were sixteen.”

The hand smacks against the glass again, louder this time, heavier. Jessica tries desperately to stand up, to regain the breath she’d lost, but it’s not working.

She hears a noise downstairs. A door. 

“Jess?” Sam’s distant voice calls.

It’s enough to ground her, to pull her back into herself. She stumbles to her feet. Reaches for the note. It falls from her shaking, uncertain hands. 

The thumping continues.

Slowly, a boy dissolves into her vision, a lanky dark haired boy with big blue eyes and a Nirvana tee shirt hanging off his shoulders. His cheeks are pale and sallow. Blood drips out of his ear. His left arm hangs, broken, at his side. His forehead is ripped open from where it hit against the car. He was dead within minutes. Barely even had time to notice his life falling away.

Jess stares at the dead boy for a second. He stares back. 

“Jess!” Sam’s voice comes again. She can hear his heavy footsteps on the stairs, and Dean’s behind him.

There’s a book of matches by the fireplace. She reaches for them, stumbling, still trying to get her grace back after the vision. 

“Don’t,” Joey says, barely audible.

“I have to. Do you want to be stuck here forever? Like you were stuck in that secondhand book store? Like you were stuck in your mother’s storage unit for years until she finally got rid of all your stuff?”

“Don’t!” Joey screams. 

She manages to get the note into her hands. Takes up a sloppy handful of salt from the doorway. Manages to strike the book of matches all at once the way Sam and Dean do it. She gets the note and the salt in the fireplace just as the door slams open, and throws the matches in after it. The Winchester boys step into the room just in time to watch the ghost burn up into nothing.

“Holy shit,” Dean says under his breath.

“Are you okay?” Sam demands, closing the distance between them, reaching for her.

She inhales hard, watching the fire. Then, she nods. Sam wraps his arms around her, his palm against the back of her head, holding her close. She hugs him back for a moment before pulling away to make sure the note is all burnt up. It is.

“Guess you have, um... a story to tell us,” Dean comments.

She laughs, exhausted, and pushes her hair off her face. “Yeah. You could say that.”

+

Jess and the Winchester brothers eat a quick lunch together. She tells them the ghost story she’d lived out in their absence, and they tell her about their hunt in Lawrence, a little stiffness in their retelling-- she figures she’ll squeeze the full story out of Sam once they’re alone.

After lunch, she shows them the newly-minted library, which Dean refers to as “nerd shit”.

“Why are you showing me a library when you got a pool table right there?” 

She laughs a little bit. “Uh, because this is actually useful?”

“Do you know how much money I make from hustling pool?”

“Do you know how many cases we solve with research?” Sam counters. “This is awesome, Jess. We should get a big cork board so we can pin up case info.”

“Good idea,” she agrees as Dean wanders out of the room. She hears pool balls clicking together a moment later. 

“So I told you to take a break, and you ended up working a case,” Sam comments once Dean is gone.

She turns toward the sliding glass door, studying it, remembering the handprints and their eerie origin. “It just sort of happened.”

“Ha. Welcome to the hunter life, I guess,” Sam says, reaching for her, sliding his arms around her waist, leaning his chin down against her shoulder. “I don’t get how you figured out it was tied to that one book, though.”

She’s still for a moment, thinking, noticing his gentle heartbeat against her back. “You’re going to think I’m nuts.”

“Try me.”

“I…” she frowns. “I’m really not sure how to explain it.”

He lets go of her. She turns to face him, her eyes shifting toward the pull in his forehead. He looks concerned.

“I just knew,” she settles for saying.

“You just knew.”

“Yeah. I figured it was one of the things I had just bought that the spirit was attached to. So I started looking through the books. When I got to that one book, it just felt more real than all the other ones. I knew it was that one. At first I thought it was one of the authors of the books, whose obit I found online, but then I just sort of knew I was wrong.” She shrugs. “And then when I picked up that note, it’s like he showed me everything. Not showed so much as… I felt it.”

Sam blinks. “I’ve never heard of anything like that before,” he admits.

Jess reaches for the loose braid over her shoulder and plays uneasily with the ends of her hair. “I keep just knowing things,” she says stupidly. “I don’t… it’s weird. It’s creeping me out.”

“Intuition can be a powerful thing.”

“No, Sam, it’s not intuition. Not just like normal intuition. It’s something weird. It’s like there’s something inside my head that knows things it shouldn’t and it tells them to me.”

“You’re hearing voices.”

Frustrated, she lets go of her hair, turning back to the window, looking out at the forest around the lakehouse. “No. I’m not hearing voices. It’s just like I suddenly understand something because the thing in my head tells it to me. I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Jess,” he says quietly. “I… sometimes I just know stuff too.”

She whips around to face him again, her heart hitching against her lungs. “What?”

“I had a vision. Of something that was going to happen-- when we were in Lawrence. I sort of chalked it up to uh, being stressed about the demon and my dad, and all--” he half-laughs a little bit, an uncomfortable twitch of his shoulders. “But I knew stuff I shouldn’t have known.”

“Does Dean…?”

“Yeah, I told him. I don’t know. He hates to think there could be anything wrong with me. He…” Sam glances over his shoulder. They’re talking quietly, but Dean really isn’t all that far away. Sam goes to nudge the library door shut, and takes Jess’ hand to lead her to the far corner of the room. “He took care of me, growing up. Our dad was always gone. He made me dinner and read me books when I was little and… everything, I guess, that my dad should have been doing. He’s not such a tough guy, not like he pretends to be.”

(that doesn’t sound right.)

“Okay,” Jess says uneasily.

“He’s not gonna… just agree that there’s something wrong with me. If that makes… any sense at all.”

(it doesn’t)

She nods.

“He’d rather talk himself out of it and pretend everything is normal. But this is not normal, Jess. Not for either of us.”

“Why is it happening? Why both of us and not Dean? The three of us, we’ve been doing all the same things recently. If we got infected by some weird supernatural thing, it should have gotten to him too.”

(you were infected by a weird supernatural thing, but dean will never understand, and it will never touch him. because he hasn’t been where you and sam have. he wasn’t chosen.)

“Ah,” she whimpers involuntarily, her hands going to her collarbone as if to hold it together.

“What? Baby, what’s going on?”

She shakes her head. 

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. It’s just getting louder. Every time I realize something I shouldn’t know-- it’s starting to hurt.”

“What did you just realize?” Sam asks her, frowning, reaching for her.

“We were chosen,” she says, half a whisper. Hesitantly, she looks up at him, her eyes stinging a little bit. He looks at her too.“You and me. Not Dean. We were chosen.”

“Chosen for what?” He asks.

“I don’t know. I don’t know who’s behind it. But it’s… nothing good, I don’t think.”

(no. you know it’s nothing good.)

+

She figures she should sleep easier with the ghost dealt with and Sam at her side. But though he dozes off around ten, bent up to take up less of the bed as he always sleeps, Jessica doesn’t relax. She listens to him breathe for a while. Tries to replay comforting memories to lull herself into rest-- her first date with Sam back when she was nineteen, wandering around campus together at sunset; the first time they kissed, watching a movie in the lounge in his dorm; the trip to Spain she went on with her parents after graduating high school; boundless moments, splashing in the cold water with the California sun burning high above her… but every time she tries to picture her mother, it ends in flame and blood and yellow eyes. And even the other thoughts, the ones that should be unmarred, keep circling back to the visions. 

(no, they’re not visions, it’s like intuition on steroids. it’s feelings. i guess.)

(my collar bone hurt so bad for a second. like it was snapping in half.)

She exhales, turning over in bed, glancing at the nightstand clock. Almost one in the morning. 

Maybe she should get some fresh air. Drink some water.

Carefully, trying not to disturb Sam, she peels herself out of bed. Pulls on some sweat pants so she won’t just be walking around in an oversized tee and undies. 

The house is dark around her, but Jess knows the place by heart. She makes it to the stairs. Starts down. Flicks on the dining room light once she gets to it.

“Sammy?”

She almost just turns around to sneak back upstairs. She’s not really in the mood to get dunked on by Dean Winchester and his bursting toxic masculinity and repression and whatever else he has going on.

“No, it’s me,” she admits.

“Oh. Sorry. Shoulda figured,” he says, wandering out of the living room toward her. He offers her a grin, and for a moment, she can understand why people seem to be so charmed by him everywhere they go. “Sam’s footsteps are so loud. He’s basically Godzilla.”

(aaaaaaaaaaaaand it’s gone.)

“He can’t help how tall he is.”

Dean’s eyebrows nudge up. “You gotta learn to take a joke, blondie.”

She fights the urge to roll her eyes. Walks past him toward the kitchen for the glass of water she’d come downstairs for.

“Anyway. I gotta hand it to you. Ganking a ghost all on your own when you ain’t been hunting longer than a couple months, going all Bill Murray-- not bad.”

“Thanks,” she says tightly.

“And this place is pretty sweet. I feel like I’m in The Shining. Like, the good part, before the creepy twins and the old lady and before Jack Nicholson goes all Jack Nicholson on the joint.”

“...thanks?”

She sips the water. Dean follows her into the kitchen as if he was going there anyway. “Can I ask you a question?”

She sets the glass down. Wipes her mouth. “Uh, yeah?”

“How’d some dorky guy like my little brother get his hands on a hottie like you?”

“Don’t call me a hottie. That’s weird,” she says, wrinkling her nose. She pulls her long blonde hair over one shoulder just for something to do with her hands.

He shrugs. “Objective truth, Rapunzel. Don’t shoot the messenger. I’m just saying, you’re outta his league. So how?”

“Sam isn’t some dorky guy. He’s smart, and he’s kind. He’s fun. When he lets loose a little, anyway. Gets out of his own head. Anyway, people aren’t divided into leagues. That’s stupid. I’m dating Sam because I like him. I love him.”

(and he makes me feel loved. she doesn’t say this. dean will just laugh at her. say something about chick flicks.)

“Huh.”

(you’ve never been in love, have you, dean? she wants to ask.)

“You don’t have to do this whole thing, you know,” she hears herself assert. She crosses her arms over her ribcage-- but then she remembers she isn’t wearing a bra, and figures she could use whatever tee shirt drapery coverage she can get, so she moves them back to her sides.

“I’m not doing a thing.”

“Being a dick is doing a thing.”

He laughs a little. “Sweetheart, some guys just are dicks. Naturally.”

“Cool. That’s really cool, Dean. I bet you have a great time acting like that. I bet it makes a lot of people think you’re really cool.”

His eyes harden a little. She catches his hand fisting out of the corner of her eye.

(is he going to punch me?)

(no, he’s not, he wouldn’t do something that would piss off sam like that)

He doesn’t punch her. “You don’t know shit,” he says. “You grew up in a lakehouse family. I grew up in a motel family. Okay?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” She asks, exasperation coloring her tone.

(why are you even doing this? just go to bed. he’s not your problem.)

“If you ain’t tough in the hunting business, you’re dead,” he says. “And you’ve known me what, a couple months? You don’t know shit. So do me a favor and hop off your high horse. Night.” He stuffs his hands in his jeans pockets and walks past her. A moment later, she hears his footsteps on the stairs.

+

The next day is sunny and warm, but not hot-- the perfect weather for Jess and Sam to go for a hike around the lake. Dean elects to go into town to catch a movie and do whatever else he does when he’s on his own. Go to a strip club in the middle of the day, Jess figures, or hook up with some college girl in the back seat of his muscle car, or commit crimes. Maybe find someone to get in a fight with. Really, you could tell her anything about Dean Winchester, and as long as it screamed guy’s guy, she’d believe it.

After the hike, and a quick lunch of salad and quesadillas, they go up to the library to study for the final exam on the occult that isn’t coming up.

She continues taking notes. Highlighting them neatly. Updating the glossary at the back of the notebook, the table of contents at the front. Hunters keep notebooks, and though she’s going back to Palo Alto for grad school as soon as she tracks down and kills the yellow eyed demon, she figures she shouldn’t bother trying the hunting thing if she isn’t going to do it right.

(this isn’t something you just dip your toes into, a voice replays in her mind. but maybe she’s different. she does things on her own terms, in her own way-- she just won’t let herself get wrapped up in it all, not like dean winchester and his father have.)

Dean is gone the rest of the day. By the time the dinner dishes are in the dishwasher, and her and Sam have both showered off their hike, and thrown in the research towel, he’s still gone. She figures it’s safe enough to leave the door unlocked for him. Their closest neighbor’s cabin is empty, anyway, and few cars pass by here. Especially in this liminal space between winter and spring. Even if that weren’t the case, she has one of Dean’s guns, and a six and a half foot tall boyfriend.

She’s still scrunching her curls dry when the aforementioned six and a half foot tall boyfriend wanders into the bedroom, damp, a towel around his waist. The first thing she notices is a huge bruise on his ribcage, an angry purple splotch. His hazel eyes catch against her blue ones as she notices.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he dismisses, turning toward his duffel for some boxers and a tee. “The, uh-- the hot water makes bruises look so much worse.”

“Sam, that looks terrible.”

“It really doesn’t hurt that bad. It’ll clear up in a few days.”

“Is it swollen?”

“A little,” he admits.

She frowns. “How did it happen?”

“In Lawrence, the spirit kinda threw me around. It’s really no big deal.”

“Do you have others?”

(they’d slept together since he’d been back. it had been too dark too see anything. she wonders if she hurt him.)

“A few,” he dismisses. 

“Sam… will you please tell me what happened in Kansas?”

“I did.” He shakes out an old tee shirt and pulls it on, his damp hair dripping on it a little bit.

“You didn’t tell me that much,” she points out. She tosses her towel toward the hamper, misses, and flops back on the bed. It squeaks a little bit under her. 

“It’s complicated, baby.”

“Too bad I’m a really stupid person who can’t possibly understand anything complicated.”

He laughs a little, and now that he’s fully dressed, takes his towel and Jess’ to put them back in the bathroom. She watches through the cracked door.

(i’m going to dump him. i’m going to do it)

“Sam, come on,” she calls through the door.

He takes his time coming back to the room. Nudges the door shut behind him. Comes to his side of the bed, pressing a kiss to her cheek before laying down. 

“Okay,” he exhales after a moment. “Fine. Um… okay. It was violent. We both got hurt. That’s why it took us a minute to leave Kansas-- we were banged up and didn’t feel like driving. The spirit, it was so mad. Me and Dean barely got the mom and the kids out in time. I think it wanted to kill them. And we met this psychic, a woman named Missouri, who knew my dad. She helped us out. It wasn’t… it’s not a campfire story type of hunt.”

“Why did the spirit want the kids dead?”

“I don’t know.” He reaches for her, and she tucks herself easily into the crook of his arm. “The mom, she found some of our old family pictures. Dean has a box of them in the Impala. And, um… you know I don’t remember my mom. Because I was a baby when she died. But seeing those pictures of her, other than just that one I had of my parents, it was weird. And then… we saw her.”

“You saw her,” Jess repeats.

“Her ghost. She was trapped in the house. Dean said she looked just the same as she did the night she died.” His voice is small. Soft. Not the kind of voice you would expect to hear from someone his size at all. This is something she’s always liked about him, something she’s always been attracted to-- he’s soft. Maybe the softest person she’s ever met. 

“It sucked,” Sam goes on. “Never getting to know her. Especially since Dean did, and he wouldn’t even really tell me about her ever. My dad wouldn’t either. So seeing her like that, it kind of made me think about what I must have missed out on my whole life.”

“Yeah,” she says, finding one of his hands in hers, holding onto it, brushing her thumb across his knuckles. “I hear you. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It is what it is.”

She gets the sense that he wants to talk about it even less now. And he told her what she wanted to know. So she reaches to turn the lamp off, and nestles back against him, and eventually they go to sleep.

+

But it doesn’t last. She wakes up to movement, mutterings, heavy breath. The whole bed shifts under his thrashing.

She fumbles for the lamp. “Sam.”

“You don’t have to do this--”

She shoves his shoulder, her own pulse riling a little even though it’s just a bad dream. “Sam!”

He gasps awake, sitting up. Looks around the darkened room like a wounded animal. After a second, he rubs at his eyes and lays back down, exhaling hard. His voice is dry and shaky, unsettled, restrained by something heavy that Jess can’t quite see. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Did I wake you up?”

“Don’t worry about it. Were you having a dream?”

He nods, pulling air into his lungs unsteadily, still rubbing at his eyes. “I’m so sick of this, Jess. I’m so fucking-- tired of this.”

“Tired of what?”

“Dreaming about terrible shit that’s going to happen,” he says, exasperation pulling at his words, closing up his throat.

She blinks. Lays back down on her side so she can look at him-- as much as she can in the darkness, anyway. “What do you mean?”

“Fuck. The case in Lawrence-- I lied to you and Dean. I didn’t get it from a newspaper. I got it from a dream. I told you I’ve been… seeing shit I shouldn’t know about… I was sort of underplaying it because it’s fucking creepy and weird, and... well, I saw that tree. In front of the house. I saw a mom and two kids who were in danger. The kind of danger me and my brother can keep people safe from. I didn’t have any proof of any kind when I dragged him to Kansas. And I didn’t know how dangerous it would be so I didn’t want to bring you into it.”

She mulls the words over. “Okay,” she says. 

(so his thing is worse than he told me. he doesn’t just sometimes know things. he dreams them, and they come true, in detail.)

(but you kind of knew that. don’t play dumb.)

“I dreamt of your death,” he admits, voice catching. “I saw you die. Ceiling, blood, fire.”

(ceiling. blood. fire. her mind rehashes his words, twisting them out of his soft voice and into something harsh and perverse and cutting. ceilingbloodfire.)

“I didn’t die,” is all she can think to say.

“I know. But I saw-- I saw you die in my dream. The way you were going to. I didn’t think it meant anything, I thought it was just a stupid anxiety dream because I was worried about the whole thing with my family and hunting again.”

A realization hits her, and she feels cold.

“What did you dream about this time?”

(do you want to know?)

“I don’t know, it was… like a ghost town, and you and me, we were there with… some other people our same age. I don’t know where Dean was.”

“You said ‘you don’t have to do this’.”

“Yeah.” Sam inhales messily. “‘Cause this guy was about to shoot me.”

“A guy? Not a demon or a monster or anything?”

“Just a guy.”

“Huh.”

“Jess?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t tell Dean about this, okay? I told him a little bit but he was so weird about it.”

“That sounds like him.”

“He’s not… you don’t know him very well,” Sam says quietly. “I know he’s a dick, but he’s a good guy. He practically raised me. The other day, when we were in Kansas, he told me that he was the one who carried me out of the fire that night when our mom died.”

She blinks. Tries to picture it in her head, but it can’t get past ceiling, blood, fire. “He did? Wasn’t he like, four?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit.”

“I knew Lawrence would be rough for him,” Sam admits. He shifts in the bed, his shoulder nudging against her-- his skin is hot. “That’s also part of why I didn’t want you to come. I knew it would upset him, going home. And it did. He hates when people see him like that.”

(this dude needs serious help, not a trunk full of guns and a bottle of whiskey.)

“Makes sense.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam says. “About the whole thing. Lying and… everything. I’m just trying to do the right thing for everyone. It’s hard to know what that is sometimes.”

“You don’t have to lie to me about anything. We can figure stuff out together,” she says. “It’s so much easier that way. Maybe not for Dean, but for you and me. And Dean can deal.”

“He just really wants to find our dad,” Sam sighs.

“We will.”

She’s quiet for a moment. Trying to figure out if she can pull a truth or two about John Winchester from the recesses of her subconscious or the back of her mind or wherever these things come from. But nothing erupts. He is made of shadows, nothing more than a scant litany of half-truths pieced together from the single picture she’s seen of him and sparse comments from his two sons.

“I hope so.” He sighs again. “We should get some sleep.”

+

She wakes up in an empty bed. Reaches for the clock-- it’s after 8 in the morning. She slept in.

Stretching, Jess gets out of bed and goes to the dresser for some jeans and a tee shirt. She’s still buttoning the jeans as she leaves her room, heading for the stairs, and by the time she’s halfway down, she catches voices. Angry voices.

She pauses. 

“I don’t care anymore, Dean,” Sam says, exasperated. Jess frowns.

“Well, I do. We ain’t calling the feds. Dad’ll skin us both.”

“After all that happened back in Kansas, I mean… he should've been there, Dean. You said so yourself. You tried to call him and...nothing.”

“I know.”

“You know, he could be dead for all we know.”

She hears a slam, and jumps a little, reaching for the railing. Dean must have slammed Sam against the fridge or something.

(he needs to control his fucking temper.)

“Don’t you fucking say that, Sammy. He’s not dead.”

“Then what? He’s busy? Too busy to answer the phone when his kids are in trouble?”

(i think i hate john winchester, jess muses, still stationed on the stairs.)

“You know what he’s doing. You know this is important.”

“Yeah, it is important. It’s important to me and Jess too. So why can’t we all work together? Why does he have to go off alone and ignore us for months on end? What kind of father--”

“You don’t understand what Dad’s been through,” Dean growls, cutting his brother off. There’s an edge in his tone that Jess doesn’t like. He’s the kind of man she’s spent her life avoiding. “Nobody can. He’s doing his best, okay, Sammy? And we ain’t kids. We’re grown ups. So lay off the guy.”

“Your blind faith in the man is getting a little old.”

“I’m going for a walk,” Dean snaps, and Jess hears his footsteps. Hears him go outside the sliding door, slamming it shut.

She waits a few more seconds before finishing her descent and making her way into the kitchen.

Sam offers her a half smile and turns to open the cabinet. “Coffee?”

“Yeah, sure, thanks,” she says as he pours her a cup. 

“How’d you sleep?”

“Not bad. What were you arguing with your brother about?”

Sam exhales slowly, reaching for his own coffee cup. “So you heard that, huh?”

Jess sips from her mug, burning her tongue a little bit. “I heard him slam you into the wall.”

“He didn’t hurt me. It’s fine. We slam each other around sometimes. Just ‘cause we’re brothers.” Sam shrugs.

“So what was he so mad about?”

“Just arguing about Dad. The usual. I just think we should focus our energy and time on finding that demon, not worrying so much about where my dad is. He’s a grown man-- a damn good hunter, and he chose to go off on his own.”

“Yeah.”

“But Dean, he thinks making sure Dad is okay is more important than anything else.”

“I mean…” Jess looks into her coffee, watches the steam come off it. “If he really wants to, he could go off alone. You and me can focus on looking for the demon, and he can find your dad.”

“We need him. This is some serious shit, baby. I’m way out of practice and you’re still learning. Dean, he may be a jerk sometimes, but he’s a really good hunter. We’re so much safer with him around.”

She sighs, closing her eyes for a second.

(he’s probably right. too bad i’m already sick of the guy even after a week long break from him.)

“We’ll find my dad eventually,” Sam adds, setting his coffee down, reaching for her. She sets her coffee down too and lets him pull her against his chest. “See if he has any leads. If not, my next idea is to lure the demon into some kind of trap. But we’ll get him eventually.”

“I hope so,” Jess mutters, trying not to think of her parents, burnt to dust in their own home, sacrificed into this sick game of cat and mouse. Trying not to think of ceiling, blood, fire.

“We will,” Sam assures her. “I promise.”

The back door bursts open. Jess flinches a little in surprise.

“Dean?” Sam calls out, letting go of her.

“Sammy, we gotta get moving. Now.”

“What?” Jess asks, crossing through the kitchen. She and Sam meet Dean at the seam between linoleum tile and hardwood floor.

“Dad just sent me a text,” he says, holding up his flip phone. “Coordinates.”


	2. second half of season one

“So you don’t even know if that was Dad,” Sam comments as Dean pulls the Impala out of his parking spot behind the now-locked lakehouse.

“It was dad. He uses burners all the time.”

“Did you try calling the number back?” Jess asks.

“He didn’t answer.” Dean picks up speed as he drives onto the main road.

“Then why are we carting off to Illinois on a whim?” Sam asks, his voice heavy with frustration. “Pastor Jim doesn’t know where he is. Bobby hasn’t heard from him in forever. Clearly the man does not want to be found. Why would he be texting you coordinates from a burner phone when he won’t even call us back?”

“Dad has his reasons.”

“Who are Pastor Jim and Bobby?” Jess cuts in from the back seat.

Sam glances over his shoulder at her. “Family friends. Both hunters. Bobby is like an uncle to us. We used to stay at his place in South Dakota all the time when our dad was off on longer hunts. Pastor Jim is a sort of demonologist, I guess.”

“Dad and Bobby had a falling out,” Dean says flatly.

“Wait, what? I never heard about that.”

“Yeah, well. Bobby was out of line. You know how he is. Dude’s stubborn as fuck.”

“When was this?” Sam asks.

“Little while after you left for Stanford. I don’t know all the details. But basically Bobby told Dad not to show up again.”

“He seemed happy to hear from me just now,” Sam says, his voice a little softer.

“He doing good?”

“Dean-- have you not talked to him since he and Dad got in that fight, either?”

Dean shrugs from the driver’s seat.

“No wonder he sounded so surprised to get my call,” Sam huffs. 

“Even if it wasn’t Dad who sent those coordinates, which it was-- someone’s in trouble in Illinois and needs our kind of help. So quit yapping,” Dean diverts.

Jess considers rolling her eyes. She settles for just leaning back against her seat and reading through her notebook, drowning out the brothers’ eternal argument.

+

Jess and the Winchester boys solve the asylum haunting and leave Illinois without ever finding out for sure if John was the one to send the coordinates. 

They drive until dark, leaving them in a small town in Missouri, where they stop at the town’s only diner and then book a pair of rooms at the town’s only motel. In the morning Sam and Jess are already packed up, waiting in Dean’s room for him to finish shaving, when a cell phone rings.

“Can you get that, Sammy?” Dean calls over the sound of his clippers. “All my phones are in the side pocket of my duffel.”

“Yeah.” Sam unzips it and starts rifling through them until he finds the one that’s ringing. He answers it. “Hello?”

Then his face falls. “Dad.”

“It’s your dad?” Jess asks without meaning to. Sam turns his eyes to her for a second, nodding. 

“Dad’s on the phone?” Dean shuffles out of the bathroom, mostly clean shaven, with a dusting of leftover bronze stubble on his left cheek. “What’s he saying?”

“You’re after it, right?” Sam asks. “The thing that killed Mom?”

He freezes for a second, listening, Jess and Dean’s eyes on him.

“Yeah, Dad, we know it’s a demon. Because it tried to kill my girlfriend. She saw it. Do you know where it is?”

Jess frowns hard. She glances toward Dean for a second, but his eyes are still on his little brother, green determination.

“No, Dad, come on,” Sam pleads. “We want to help. That demon killed Jess’ parents. And it almost killed her. This is our fight too.” 

“Give it to me,” Dean says.

“I don’t want to solve some case in Indiana. I want to find the demon.”

Dean reaches for the phone and snatches it out of Sam’s hand. “Dad? It’s me, where are you?” He asks, his eyes wide like a kid. He listens for a second, and he changes completely, his shoulders straightening, his eyebrows going back down, setting with obedience. “Yes sir.” He reaches for the hotel notepad and pen and jots some things down as he listens. “Great. Thanks. We’re on it. ...Yes, sir. Goodbye.” Dean hangs up. 

“Dean--”

“Okay. We gotta get going for Indiana. Shouldn’t be too long a drive.”

“What did he say to you?” Jess asks Sam, ignoring his older brother.

“He said to stop looking for him,” Sam huffs. “He said he’s making progress on the demon. And we should just go work the case in Indiana.”

“So let’s go,” Dean says.

Sam shakes his head, frowning hard. “No, Dean. I want to find the demon. We’re going to California. That was a Sacramento area code. I think we should go look for him.”

“Yeah, we should,” Jess agrees. “Maybe you can ask some other hunter to take the Indiana case. You said your dad’s friend lives in South Dakota? That isn’t too far.”

“Yeah, good thinking, baby, let’s call Bobby.” Sam is already reaching for his phone.

Dean bats it away. 

“What the hell, Dean?”

“Dad said to leave him be and go to Indiana,” Dean repeats. “So we go to Indiana.”

“I don’t want to go to Indiana.”

“Look, we wanted to get a hold of Dad. We finally did. We know he’s doing okay. We need to do our jobs now, Sammy.”

“Don’t I get a say in this?” Jess cuts in.

“No,” Dean says at the same time Sam says “of course”.

“Look, Sandra Dee, we got shit to take care of in Indiana. If Dad says stop looking for him, he’s got a good reason. He clearly knows something we don’t. We’re going to Indiana.”

“No, Dean, we’re not,” Sam argues. He turns to Jess. “We can take a bus or plane to California and grab my car from the lakehouse. Then we drive to Sacramento.”

“Great,” Jess says, nodding.

“No. Not great,” Dean interrupts. He slices his palm through the air tightly. “We go to Indiana. End of.”

“I don’t understand the blind faith you have in the man,” Sam says, voice raising. “It’s like you don’t even question him!”

“Yeah, it’s called being a good son,” Dean snaps. 

(um, cold)

Jess pulls her lips in, glancing from her boyfriend to his brother, figuring she should sit this out.

“Unbelievable,” Sam says with a scoff. He slings his backpack over his shoulder, grabs his duffel, and reaches for Jess’ hand. “Come on, Jess. Let’s go.”

“Bye, Dean.” She reaches for her stuff too, and slips her hand into Sam’s, and lets the motel door slam behind them.  
+

Thanks to directions from a helpful cashier at a nearby corner store, Sam and Jess find their way to the local bus station. A plane is out of the question, considering the guns and knives they’re both carrying, which means three different buses and almost thirty hours of drive time.

“Figures I get into a fight with my brother right after leaving my car in California,” Sam grumbles as he sits down next to Jess in the waiting area, two tickets in hand.

She reaches for his shoulder, squeezing it, resting her hand there. “It’s okay. It’s not like we’d get there any faster driving on our own. This way we don’t have to stop to sleep.”

He sighs, his head dipping down, his overgrown hair flopping into his face. “I wish my brother would stop with the blind faith. He never questions anything my dad tells him to do. Ever.”

“Why?” Jess asks, frowning a little. “He’s twenty-six. He’s a grownup. He should think for himself.”

“Jess…” Sam shakes his head. Stares at the dirt and dust-laden linoleum tile at their feet. “Look, when we were kids, there were consequences for questioning our dad.”

“Consequences,” she repeats, blinking.

“Bruises and bloody noses.”

“Are you shitting me? He was abusive?”

“I mean, I don’t know if I would say that. It’s not like he beat us around just for the thrill of it. He has temper issues, I guess. He’s been through a lot. The war and losing our mom, and all. And I mean, he was raised in a different time. In the ‘60s when he was a kid, that kind of thing, it was standard parenting.”

“That doesn’t make it okay, Sam,” Jess says. “Especially considering Dean is clearly fucked up over it.”

“Dean’s fucked up about a lot of things.”

“Yeah, so he doesn’t need your dad’s temper problems adding to the pile.”

(he clearly has his own temper problems to worry about, anyway, jess thinks, remembering how he slammed sam against the wall and raised his voice at the both of them last week at the lakehouse. i guess i know where he gets them.)

(poor guy.)

“I don’t really wanna talk about it, baby. Are you hungry? The bus isn’t coming for another hour and a half. We should eat first.”

+

A few hours later they’re deposited at an empty transportation hub in Nebraska, the air chilly and loose around them as they haul their stuff off. They watch the bus drive away.

The only other passengers who get off with them-- a pair of teenage boys, an elderly woman, and a man with a little girl-- are all gone within minutes. The boys whisked off in a beat up red car with a man who is probably their father or uncle, the woman in a taxi, the man and the little girl in another taxi. Sam and Jess head inside to use the bathrooms and sit down. It’s dark and dingey. Doesn’t quite feel real.

(there’s something bad about this place. something off.)

Every muscle in her body tightens hard. Her head spikes with unearned pain. She reaches for it with shaky hands on instinct.

(a girl. fifteen or sixteen. running away from something. dragging a worn purple roller suitcase, a matching jansport hanging off her shoulders, smeared makeup to make herself look older. dying, right now, right this second, on some man’s couch. it’s the first time he’s done this-- met a girl online, tricked her into running away from her broken home and into his rancid arms-- but it probably won’t be the last.)

“Jess? Baby, what’s wrong? Are you seeing something?”

“Aah,” she exhales uncomfortably, the air pushing out of her chest like she’s been knocked to the ground. Her eyes are burning. She reaches for Sam’s left hand in both of hers, just for something to hold onto, something to ground herself against. His right hand settles on her shoulder. “Yeah. Some runaway girl… a teenager girl, she was here, and now she’s--” tears spring from her eyes. She shakes her head. Her knuckles go white around Sam’s hand.

“What?” He asks gently.

“She’s dead. She just died. Some guy got her to take a bus here to meet up with him and he killed her. I just felt her die.”

“You felt her die?”

She lets go of Sam’s hand. Covers her face. “We have to do something, Sam.”

“What could we even do?”

“Call in an anonymous tip.”

“Do you know where they are?” 

Jess shakes her head. Tries to look for another shred of something. But the vision is over, closed for business, and it’s not like she can do this on command.

“Why does this keep happening?” The words fall pathetically from her tightened throat. “Seeing stuff that’s going to happen to me is one thing, but this--?”

“I don’t know, baby. I hope we can find answers and fix it,” Sam sighs, rubbing her back.

The station feels sinister in the wake of this vision. Grotesque. The air is stale, and too thin to comfortably fill her lungs, and buzzing with leftover pain. It sets its claws into her flesh like it’s been waiting for years.

(if i were here alone. if i were here alone, this would be so scary.)

She leans into her boyfriend, grateful for him in general, grateful for him in specific.

“It’s going to be okay. Do you know what they looked like-- the man and the girl?”

“Yeah,” she answers quietly into her hands. “I saw them both.”

“Good. We can match her description against missing person’s reports and bus routes and call in an anonymous tip. Okay?”

She nods. Wishes they were anywhere else. Wishes they had never left the lakehouse on John Winchester’s stupid mission.

+

An hour into their layover, with the tip called in and Sam away at the gas station down the street to grab some snacks, another person wanders into the bus station. She’s young, maybe even younger than Jess and Sam, with short blonde hair and a backpack slung over her shoulder. Jess accidentally makes eye contact with her. Offers a smile. The girl returns it timidly. Wanders toward Jess and sits across from her.

“Where are you headed?” She asks.

“California,” Jess answers. “What about you?”

“Really? I’m going to California too.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jess offers her another smile. “I grew up there. My boyfriend and I are heading back now, since we left his car there.”

“What’s your name?”

“Jess.”

“I’m Meg.”

“Nice to meet you.”

They shake hands. Meg’s is cold-- so cold Jess almost flinches. But she doesn’t. Her parents drilled politeness into her at a young age.

“How’d you end up in Nebraska without your car?” Meg asks.

(adjust the truth)

“My boyfriend and I, we were on a road trip with his brother,” Jess explains. “But then something came up at home. Dean couldn’t leave Indiana so we left on our own. Buses are cheaper than flying, and all that.”

“Family trouble?”

Jess nods.

“I get that. My family is so controlling. I had to jet. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

(i wish my parents were around to be controlling.) “Oh, yeah.”

The station door opens again, and Sam walks in, a plastic bag in one hand and his phone in the other. He frowns his way over and reclaims his seat next to Jess, exhaling hard, setting the bag down.

“What’s wrong?” She asks, trying to speak quietly even though there’s no way Meg won’t hear.

“I just got a call from the ticket office,” he answers, shaking his head. “The bus is cancelled.”

“What? No,” Jess sighs. She fumbles with the sleeve of her jacket. “Dammit.”

“Next one’s not until tomorrow.”

“The bus to California?”

With a glance in Meg’s direction, Jess nods.

“Shit,” she says under her breath.

“I guess we’re stuck here,” Sam says, rubbing at the back of his neck. 

Jess reaches for his other hand, taking it between both of hers. She plays with it a little, shaking her head, trying to search her brain for a better option. She comes up empty. They just have to wait. 

+

Time passes slowly. Eventually, she falls asleep against Sam’s shoulder, an uneasy nap to catch up on the house she’s lost recently. 

In her dreams, she sees her parents, driving a boat on the lake, and Jess trailing behind it on an inner tube. The water is cold and harsh, and it smells worse and worse the further the boat drags her. She tries to get their attention to stop. But they don’t notice her.

She wakes up with a start. Sam is gone.

(shit)

“Looking for your boyfriend? Guy around our age, about ten feet tall, overgrown brown hair?”

She blinks, turning toward Meg.

(forgot you were here.)

“Did you see where he went?”

“Yeah. His phone was ringing so he stepped outside.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

(something isn’t right here.)

The thought startles her. These kinds of thoughts, they’ve been too thick lately, too frequent, too correct. But this one doesn’t offer any elaboration. Just a little bit of TV static in her ears. She rubs at them as if she’ll be able to rub it away, fingers catching on her small gold hoop earrings.

Sam is back before she can adjust out of the static. His eyes are glassy. He comes and sits down next to her again.

“Who was that?”

“My brother,” he exhales. 

“What did he say?” Jess asks.

“Um, we apologized to each other about the fighting,” Sam recounts. He swallows. “He said I was right to leave. That he’s proud of me for standing up to our dad, and to call once we track the guy down. And he… said goodbye.”

“Goodbye, like…?”

“It sounded like a… serious goodbye,” Sam says dumbly.

Jess can feel Meg’s eyes on her. Can feel the girl listening in. She ignores it. “I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by that, Sam.”

Sam shrugs. He wipes at his face, blinks away the unshed tears. “Yeah, uh, yeah. Okay.”

The station slips back to quiet. It stays like that for quite a while.

+

Hours pass. The countdown for the replacement bus to California thins. 

But then, when there are only a couple hours of lag left, Sam stands up. Pulls his backpack on. “Baby, we gotta go.”

“Go? Go where?”

“Indiana,” Sam sighs. “Dean’s in trouble. We gotta go.”

(the words she wants to say pour through her mind. no. fucking no. i am so sick of you two dragging me around the damn country on whims. it’s been six months. all i ever wanted was to find that demon and kill it. now’s our chance!)

She pulls air into her lungs and forces herself to think before she speaks. 

“What do you mean, Dean’s in trouble?” She asks instead. In spite of her frustration, she stands too. Gathers her things.

(because we’re a team and i have to trust him. but i’m so fucking sick of this.)

“I mean…” Sam nudges a glance in Meg’s direction. 

(he knows something.)

A single nod. Jess lets him lead her out of the station. Meg starts to ask them a question. They ignore it.

“You can just tell?”

Sam nods. He’s reaching for his phone, trying a call-- it goes flat.

“Yeah. I knew he wasn’t going to answer, too.” 

“How are we going to get to Indiana?”

“It’s only a couple hours. Maybe we can hitch hike? Long haul trucker or something?”

“We could try renting a car,” Jess suggests. “You have a fake i.d. Does it say you’re older than twenty-five?”

“I don’t know, my brother made it.” Sam fishes it out of his backpack as they walk in no particular direction. He peers at it. “Says I’m twenty-seven.”

“So let’s get the phone book out of that phone booth and find a place to rent a car,” Jess says, gesturing back to the station.

Sam nods several times. “Yeah. Okay. Smart.”

+

Burkitsville, Indiana, should be a solid three hours away, but Sam drives more like his brother than himself, and they make it there in two. Ripping down the highway in a rental car with fake i.d.’s and bags of illegal guns and other suspicious stuff like knives and holy water and notebooks of exorcisms and other lore. Sam only bothers slowing down when they see a cop car in the distance.

Jess tries calling Dean every half hour or so. He never picks up. Sam’s knuckles go white on the steering wheel, his eyebrows pulled tightly together.

The sky above them gets darker and darker.

“There,” Sam says as they pull into town, his first utterance in at least twenty minutes. “The orchard.”

“Dean’s there?”

“He’s gotta be.” Sam maneuvers the car toward it, parks sloppily, and the two of them pile out, guns shoved down their pants. 

“Dean!”

For a moment, Jess thinks this whole thing is insane, and there’s no way Sam’s premonition could hold any weight. That none of hers could either. That they’re both going crazy. She read about this in her psychology class once-- folie a deux, madness of two. They’re making each other crazy, she figures, standing in a chilly apple orchard in an unfamiliar state.

But then Dean’s voice cuts through the night air. “Sam?”

He’s tied to a tree less than thirty feet away. Jess and Sam run toward him, and as they get close she catches sight of a young woman tied to a tree, too.

“Oh, I take back everything bad I ever said to you,” Dean gushes as they make it to his side. “I am so happy to see you.”

Sam is already at work with his pocket knife, cutting Dean’s wrist restraints off. Jess looks toward the girl for a second before hurrying over to start untying her.

“You’re gonna be fine,” she reassures.

“How’d you get here?” Dean asks Sam.

“I, uh, I stole a car.”

Jess stops in her tracks. Turns around. “You did what?”

“Oh, that’s my boy!” Dean laughs a little. 

“Yeah, uh, they wouldn’t rent to me,” Sam admits. “They clocked the i.d. as a fake. Said I looked like a college kid. So I hot wired one of their rentals while you were waiting out front.”

“You can’t just steal cars, Sam!”

“Can we have this riveting argument later?” Dean suggests as Sam frees his wrists. “That scarecrow could come alive at any minute, keep an eye on it.”

(fine. these fucking boys.)

She goes back to untying the young woman.

“What scarecrow?” Sam asks.

Dean turns around just as Jess frees the girl’s wrists. His eyes land on a pole about ten feet away. 

“Shit,” he says under his breath. “Alright, uh, we gotta move.”

Jess, Sam, and the girl follow Dean, all running, and as they do he explains a few things-- ancient tree, the source of the scarecrow’s power, something something, sacrifice. Jess barely pays attention, a little distracted by the fact that her boyfriend (who was already on thin ice) just stole an entire car.

And he didn’t even tell her. He just let her think he rented it like he was supposed to.

“We gotta burn the tree,” Dean concludes.

(whatever. burn the damn tree on your own.)

Jess glances toward the girl to make sure she’s okay. Offers her a reassuring smile. 

“Okay, so let’s find it,” Sam says.

“In the morning. For now let’s shag ass before leatherface catches up.”

There’s rustling behind them. All four of them turn, and they’re faced with an older white couple, the man pointing a rifle at them. Jess’ ears go numb for a second. 

Dean grabs onto Sam’s arm. Yanks him back around. But they’re surrounded.

“Please let us go,” the girl begs.

“It’ll be over quickly, I promise. You have to let him take you, Emily,” the man with the rifle says grimly.

(he knows her? he’s sacrificing someone he knows? okay, this is fucked up.)

But before the thought can fully settle in her mind, a thick, long knife pokes through the man’s chest from behind him. Emily screams. Jess’ jaw drops, and she reaches for Sam, finding a handful of his jacket sleeve.

The man’s body crumbles to the floor. The scarecrow starts dragging him off, along with the woman next to him. The rest of the townspeople dissolve into the trees.

“Come on. Let’s go,” Dean orders, reaching for Emily’s hand. The four of them stumble to safety.

+

In the morning, they return to the orchard and burn the tree. Jess still doesn’t understand the whole story. She figures it doesn’t matter.

“Are we going to try to get to Sacramento now?” Jess asks Sam as they wander back to Dean’s car, trying to keep her voice quiet so Dean won’t hear.

“Yeah, I gotta talk to my brother,” Sam sighs. 

(yeah as in, yeah we’re heading to sacramento? or yeah as in, yeah, about that?)

Before she can ask, Dean catches up with them. “You two lovebirds tryin’ to ditch me?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Sam laughs a little.

Jess doesn’t respond.

+

Sam and Dean are both exhausted. Jess agrees to take a day off. 

(but just one day. because who knows how long john is going to be in california for. he might already be gone. hunters, they can’t seem to sit still for very long.)

The hotel they end up in has continental breakfast. Over half-stale muffins and burnt coffee, Dean brings up a case in Tennessee. Something called a rawhead.

By the time Jess realizes that Dean means for them to all go, now, instead of California, Sam is already deep into the conversation.

“Wait a second,” she interrupts.

The boys keep talking. “Yeah, they live in basements, I’m pretty sure, or like anywhere underground--”

“Dean,” she says louder.

He stops, shooting her an annoyed glance. “What’s on your mind, Princess Peach?”

Her ears go hot. Her mind empties for a second, and when it refills, the anger she’s been feeling toward this man for months overflows.

“Stop with the cutesy demeaning nicknames,” she orders. “My name is Jessica.”

“Feisty,” Dean says with an eyebrow wiggle and a half chuckle. Sam doesn’t react at all.

“Oh my God, spare me. I am so sick of this, you guys. I can’t keep doing this. I wanted to come with you to find the demon that almost killed me-- that probably killed my parents and who knows how many other innocent people. That’s all I ever wanted. But you two are dragging me across the country to fight ghosts and zombies and whatever the hell else.”

“Okay, first of all, you didn’t have to come,” Dean says, pushing his voice lower than natural. “In fact, as far as I’m concerned, you weren’t even invited.”

“Dean--”

“I don’t care if I was invited or not. This isn’t a birthday party. We said we were going to find your dad and then hunt the demon together,” Jess says, cutting Sam off. He lets her. “And then as soon as we got a lead on your dad, you completely dropped the plan we agreed on. To go-- what? Almost get murdered by some pagan scarecrow god? And now you want to almost get murdered by something called a rawhead in a basement? This is ridiculous. We need to be focusing on the demon.”

“Jess, can we talk alone?” Sam asks gently.

“No. Because if you and I go off on our own again, Sam, you’re just going to turn around the second you think Dean is in danger.”

He opens his mouth to protest. But no words come. 

(yeah, ‘cause i’m fucking right.)

“Don’t act like you understand how things go in our family, okay?” Dean says to her, almost a growl. 

(oh my god! spare me the tough guy routine!)

“Dean, I never said I understand your family,” she says impatiently. She pushes her hair off her face, trying to gather her thoughts, trying to figure out how to do this. “But I don’t have a family anymore. Because of that demon. So forgive me if I’m more concerned about that than I am about you and your dad’s feelings.”

“This isn’t about feelings!”

“Dean, come on, there are other people in here,” Sam half mutters.

“Then what’s it about?” Jess demands.

“Doing our damn job!”

“This isn’t my job. I’m going to school to be a physical therapist. This is just something I have to do because if we don’t get this thing, more innocent people are going to die.”

“Innocent people die every day, blondie. That’s why we do what we do. How is that any different?”

(because)

(because maybe it’s also about getting some fucking revenge.)

At once, she understands what she has to do.

She stands up from the table. “I’m going to go back to the lakehouse, then,” she says. “I don’t want to go on your Halloween monster field trips anymore. I’m going to the lakehouse, and you can come by when you’re ready to find the demon.”

Sam blinks, looking up at her, frowning. “You… you’ll just wait there?” He asks.

She nods. 

“Works for me,” Dean shrugs. “Hell, I’ll even drive you there myself, once we ice the rawhead.”

“No. I’ll just fly. I don’t need your gun if I’m just going to sit around Lake Tahoe anyway.”

“Are you sure about this, baby?” Sam asks.

His eyes ask her to reconsider. She looks away from them. Looks at his brother instead. 

“Yes.”

“I guess that’s fair. You’re new to this life, and it’s a lot to deal with.”

(you still don’t fucking understand, do you, sam?)

“Yeah,” she says with a fake half smile. “I’ll study up. Read everything I can find about demons.”

Sam nods a few times. “Okay.”

“So I’ll drop you at the airport then,” Dean offers.

“That’d be great.”

They finish eating. She gets her things. She says goodbye to the Winchester boys at the Indianapolis airport, and she goes to the ticket counter, and she gets a ticket to the Reno-Tahoe airport on the border between Nevada and California. By the end of the day, she’s paying a taxi driver outside her family’s vacation home. By the next morning, she’s gone, driving Sam’s car west toward Sacramento.

She’s never really lied to Sam before. Not like this, anyway. 

But desperate times, and all that.

+

The problem is, she doesn’t really know where to start.

All she has on John Winchester is the knowledge that he was in Sacramento almost a full week ago, and he used to hit his kids. 

(she pictures sam as a little kid, maybe a front tooth missing, thin shoulders and floppy hair. he’d said bruises and bloody noses.)

(maybe she hates john winchester.)

Exhaling hard through her nose, she flicks the radio on. Sam doesn’t have any good CDs in his car, just The Eagles and Sinead O’Connor. First channel that comes on, Green Day is playing. 

(that’s more like it.)

She rolls the window down a little, letting some air into the car, and picks up speed. Two hours to Sacramento. Two hours to figure out some sort of game plan.

Hunters stay at cheap hotels. That’s one thing she knows. One place she can start. So she’ll get her hands on a phone book and start going through motels in the phone books, asking if a John Winchester is staying at each one until she gets a yes.

(wait, no, the dude uses fake credit cards. shit.)

She’ll use his description. She doesn’t know how tall he is, but considering the fact that his sons are 6’4 and (she guesses) 6’2, he’s likely over six feet tall himself. And there was that one picture of him in his thirties in their apartment, thick black hair and big brown eyes and a square jaw. He might be grey and/or balding by now. 

The song changes to an old David Bowie number and she sighs again, realizing she really won’t be able to describe him very well. And driving around to check hotel parking lots for his car is a non starter. She has no idea what he drives. The only people she knows who know him are off limits for the moment, being that they both think she’s swimming in Lake Tahoe and she doesn’t want to put them on her trail. 

(family friends. they’ve mentioned family friends. there’s bobby, who had a falling out with john at some point, and there pastor jim)

John had kept an index of hunters and their phone numbers in the back of his journal. She’d flipped through it during a few car rides, copying down relevant demon and monster information into her own notebook. She squints at the flat road ahead of her, trying to remember if Pastor Jim’s listing had featured a last name.

(jim. jim. jim. come on.)

(murphy, jim murphy!)

According to Sam, he hadn’t known where John was either. But if she can get ahold of him or Bobby Singer, maybe she can at least ask them a few of her own questions about demons. Beyond the two of them, her best bet is to somehow get in contact with other hunters, but they would have to be professionals, since Sam and Dean made it clear that not just anyone knows how to go after demons.

So basically-- she has nothing.

(no, jess, she tells herself, you’re smarter than that. you’re too smart to give up that east. so be smart.)

She nods a few times, eyes trained hard on the road in front of her. 

(you’re a hunter now. so hunt john. figure out what drew him to sacramento and investigate it on your own and eventually you’ll find him.)

+

She doesn’t know how long he’s been in Sacramento-- only that he was in Jericho right before Dean showed up at her and Sam’s apartment that night in October. That’s the problem. But at least this is a starting point.

Once Jess makes it to the city, she puts gas in Sam’s car, and stops inside the station for an iced tea and a newspaper. The Sacramento Bee.

A quick Internet search, mooching off the free wireless network of a nearby cafe, and she has the phone number of their main office. She makes a call.

“Hello,” an older man’s voice answers.

Her chin nudges up, and she watches herself in the rearview mirror as she speaks. “Hi! My name is Jessica Moore. I’m a student at the community college, doing a criminology project. Would you mind answering just a couple quick questions for me?”

“Sacramento City College?” He grunts. 

“That’s right!”

“Huh. Yeah. What’s your question?”

“Well, I was hoping I could buy a couple back issues of the paper from you. Anything that mentions mysterious deaths or disappearences, murder, possible arson, stuff like that, from the past six months? I’m supposed to start this journal where I document my thought process on reading the baseline information of the crimes. Like, explain what I would do, where I would start, who I would want to interview first, all of that. It’s my first criminology course and I’m really excited to get started. I’ve been wanting to take this class for like three quarters now, but it’s always full.”

One thing she figured out early on-- if you talk about something boring for long enough, you can pretty much guarantee that the other person won’t ask you any probing questions. 

And it works. 

“Uh, yeah, okay, alright. I’ll run the keyword searches and get those ready for you to come pick ‘em up in the morning. Gonna be a dollar per paper.”

“Great, thank you so much,” she says brightly. “Appreciate it.”

+

She spends the whole next day combing through about twenty newspapers, sitting on the stiff bed of the motel she’d picked, munching on a box of Triscuits and some banana chips. She ends up with four issues set aside. Things that sound like, as Dean puts it, ‘our kinda thing’-- anything she couldn’t dismiss as a standard domestic violence or kidnapping case. The most recent one was about six weeks ago, so she figures she’ll start there-- squatters in an abandoned hair salon above a convenience store, two sisters in their twenties and an older man, with one of the sisters turning on and murdering the other sister out of nowhere before dropping dead herself with seemingly no cause or manner of death. The newspaper dismissed it as a drug thing, but there were no drugs in their systems. The man they’d been squatting with had been briefly arrested on suspicion, but the authorities had released him within 48 hours, and he’d immediately disappeared. There was an electric storm through that part of the city that same night-- something John Winchester’s journal lists as an omen.

So she stops at a church to swipe some holy water and she bides her time until the middle of the night.

Jess has never really broken and entered before, but, she figures as she parks Sam’s car down the street from the crime scene, there’s a first time for everything.

Anyway, she rationalizes, it’s not like it’s an active crime scene anymore.

She takes a moment to check her surroundings, to survey the darkened, damp Sacramento street-- cars parked here and there, a squirrel scurrying around, and some stragglers outside a nearby Irish pub, stumbling and laughing on the fumes of whatever they’d been drinking before the place had closed. It’s two a.m. on a Wednesday. The coast is clear. The thin alley holding the side door is empty.

She’d tucked a couple bobby pins into the base of her French braid for safekeeping, so she retrieves the first one, ripping off its rubber tip before bending it like the online tutorial had suggested. This would probably be easier with the lockpick Sam and Dean kept in the Impala’s trunk, but she’ll make do. 

She slides it in by the meager, sticky streetlight, listening closely for the tumblers, holding her breath for no real reason. It’s a slow process, being her first lock, and all, but she gets it eventually. With a final glance over her shoulder, Jess slips into the building.

Her heart is thudding. 

(crime, her mind suggests. you just committed a crime. you are currently committing a crime.)

(you also solved a haunting case all by yourself like two weeks ago. and you’re a good liar because everyone thinks you’re so naive and cute and innocent. if you get caught, just burst into tears and say you’re like sixteen or something. you can handle yourself, so it’ll be fine.)

She exhales shortly, nods, and straightens her shoulders. (either do it or don’t, but don’t do it stupid.)

Up the dusty stairs, barely lit by the keychain flashlight Sam had gotten for free at a scholarship fair, to the salon entrance. It isn’t even locked.

The salon is furnished with a small front desk, a few shelves that probably used to hold hair products, a pair of sinks, and four chairs stationed in front of mirrors. All of the mirrors are shattered, shards littered on the ground, picking up the thin glow from the keychain flashlight. There aren’t any sleeping bags or other signs of life, but then again, she figures, the police probably took those things as evidence. 

There’s still a blood splatter painted along the back wall.

No smell of sulfur. But then again, it’s been six weeks. Maybe it’s worn off.

(black powder, right? maybe there’s some of that.)

She scours the floor. It’s dusty, and littered with small trash-- receipts, cigarette butts, a tube of chapstick, a broken pen-- but after several moments of looking, Jess finds a deposit of black powder.

(this is the case john was working. it has to be. so i’ll work backwards and i’ll find him and i’ll make him tell me everything he knows about the yellow-eyed demon.)

+

But there’s nothing. 

She gets everything she can on the two women who’d died, which isn’t much. She pretends to be an intern at a law office and asks the Sacramento police department for the police reports. She spends days on this, dissecting every scrap of information she gets her hands on, but none of it points to the Winchester boys’ father.

Her phone rings as she’s driving away from the library after a fruitless day of scouring newspapers. She fumbles to answer it with one hand.

“Hello.”

“Hi, Jess,” Sam’s voice comes. He sounds tired. “How’s the lake?”

“It’s great. I just got out of it, actually. I was swimming.”

“Oh, nice. Wish I was there with you.” He exhales slowly. “I just wanted to check in.”

“What are you guys up to?” She asks, flicking on her turn signal, pulling over on the side of the road so no errant driving sounds will give up her lie.

“Uh… it’s a really long story. I’m hoping I’ll be able to tell it to you in person soon and laugh about what a uh, a close call… it was… but for now I’m kind of… I just really wanted to hear your voice.”

She frowns. Reaches for an empty water bottle to toy with. “Sam, are you alright?”

“I’m okay, yeah.”

“Dean?”

“I… I can’t talk about it right now, baby. I hope he’s gonna be alright too.”

“Shit,” she sighs. Monster, ghost, maybe another demon, vampires, werewolves… the possibilities for things that could go wrong for the Winchester boys are endless. Hell, it might not even be anything supernatural. It might be that he got caught committing one of his many regular crimes and ended up arrested or shot as a result. “I’m sorry to hear that. I hope he pulls through whatever it is.”

“He will. I’m… I have a plan.”

“A stupid plan?”

Sam laughs a little bit, weakly. “I hope not.”

“Well… good luck with it. I’m gonna let you go, I’m dying to shower this lake water off me. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Call me if you have news, okay?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

She nods, though he can’t see her from whatever state he’s in, and hangs up. 

(i really hate lying to him.)

+

Two frustrating days later, she figures she’ll look into the next most recent case, one from two weeks before the case with the squatters in the salon. The newspaper article describes a middle-aged man killing his wife and two kids for no reason anyone could figure out-- there was no affair, no big life insurance payout, no history of mental health issues, no substance abuse problems. The house sits empty in the city suburbs. She scopes it out by day, and figures breaking in shouldn’t be a problem by night.

It’s a nice neighborhood, though, full of beautiful, well-kept homes with two-car garages. She has to be careful. These people might have a neighborhood watch or a friendly police officer on speed-dial or something. 

Parking around the corner should be enough of a precaution, she decides as her watch beeps two in the morning. And at least she’ll have the cover of the back yard on her side as she picks the lock open.

(exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica. ergo, omnis legio diabolica, adiuramus te. she repeats the memorized exorcism over and over in her head as she walks toward the house, just to make sure she has it memorized. if there’s a demon hanging around this is her only defense. she doesn’t have an iron knife or a hex bag or a gun loaded with salt rounds. and the flask of holy water in her back pocket will only slow it down.)

A dog barks in the near distance, and Jess flinches hard, looking over her shoulder. No. It’s just in someone’s back yard. 

(god, i wish sam were here.)

She picks up her pace and makes it to the back gate of the house quickly. The neighbor’s security light haloing her, she gets to work on the lock, sliding the broken bobby pin inside, listening for the tumblers. 

Rain begins to gently thump against her as she goes. The swanky back patio with its elaborate barbecue and outdoor dining set isn’t covered, California being one of the dryer states. She hears the rain tick into the trees, against the roof, onto the grass-- it covers the sound of the tumblers enough to be a nuisance. 

But she perseveres. She gets it eventually, and she slips into the house.

(if something bad was going to happen, she reassures herself, you would have had a premonition. you’re fine. just go in and look for sulfur and anything else.)

She shines her small flashlight around the kitchen. Nothing looks out of place. The article didn’t say where the crime occurred, and she hadn’t wanted to try her luck a second time with the police report, but the kitchen seems like an unlikely setting to Jess. She figures it’s more likely that everyone was murdered in their bedrooms, considering the crime happened in the middle of the night.

(stairs, where are the stairs)

She makes her way through the dining room and living room. The stairs are in the far corner, by the front door. She makes for them.

The click of a gun’s hammer stops her dead in her tracks. 

“I wouldn’t take another step,” a man’s voice comes from behind her. 

(fuck. fuck fuck fuck)

“Don’t shoot,” she says. “Uh, I’m gonna turn around, okay?”

“Yeah. Don’t try anything funny.”

She turns around slowly, hands in the air, still holding the flashlight. Her heart thumps hard against my chest. The man with the gun looks to be in his mid thirties, with a beard and overgrown brown hair. A worn denim jacket hugs his toned shoulders. The gun in his hand is pearly white, like Dean’s. He doesn’t bother lowering it.

(is this how i die? how is sam even going to find out? nobody will be able to get ahold of him. they’ll call my aunt and she won’t know how to get in touch with him and he’ll just think i’m at the lakehouse until he turns up and i’m not there.)

(no you’re not going to die oh my god stop being so dramatic)

“I don’t have a gun,” she says, trying to keep her cool. “Or a knife or anything. Can we just talk?”

“What are you doing here?” He asks, lowering his gun slightly, finger off the trigger.

“Um--”

(you should have come up with a cover story!)

“I’m… I just knew the house was empty and I wanted to check it out,” she says. “I like exploring abandoned buildings and all. That’s it. I didn’t think anyone would notice I was ever here.”

“Hmm,” he grunts, putting the gun back down the back of his pants. 

“I really didn’t think anyone lived here. I can go,” she says.

(why was he pointing a gun at me? that seems a little intense. he’s gotta be a squatter or something.)

“You wanna tell me why you’re really here, instead?” he asks.

Her ears go a little hot. “I just like exploring. That’s it,” she repeats.

“So that’s not a flask of holy water in your back pocket, then?”

(what?)

“It’s, uh, it’s vodka,” she says quickly. 

“You looking for sulfur? You a hunter?”

Her eyes widen. She glances over her shoulder for a second. Then she looks back at him, and nods a few times, frowning. “Yeah. Uh, my name’s Jessica.” She takes a few steps toward him and offers her hand.

He accepts it, shaking it firmly. “Asa Fox,” he introduces. “I’m a hunter too. You look awful young to be hunting on your own.”

“I can handle myself.”

He laughs a little bit. Nods. “Well, I hate to rain on your parade, Jessica, but the demon that was here is long gone. I’ve been camped out since the police tape came down, and it hasn’t showed back up yet.”

“Yeah, I figured. I’m not really looking for it. I’m kind of trying to retrace another hunter’s steps.”

“Another hunter? Who?”

“John Winchester.”

Asa’s eyebrows rise a little bit. “Winchester, huh?”

“Yeah. Do you know him?”

“No. I just knew a different hunter named Winchester way back in the day. But I’ve heard his name here and there-- he a friend of Bobby Singer’s?”

“Yeah. That’s right,” she answers, a little bit of relief warming her fingers-- maybe there’s some kind of hunter network. Maybe they all keep in touch. Maybe this Asa Fox guy can lead her to someone who can lead her to John.

“Figures.”

“Do you know a lot of hunters?” She asks, eagerness pulling at her tone.

“A fair amount.”

“What about a pastor named Jim Murphy? I’ve heard he knows a lot about demons.”

“Yeah, I know Jim,” Asa says with a nod.

“Could you give me his number, do you think?”

“Sure thing. No problem. Hey, why’re you looking for John Winchester, anyway?” Asa asks.

“It’s a long story. The short version is, his sons and I were looking for him, but then they sort of gave up on it, because he called and let us know he’s alive and stuff. But he’s hunting the same demon I’m hunting. So I still want to find him.” She tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

“I have beef with a demon too,” Asa says. “The one that possessed the guy in this house a few weeks ago.”

“Yellow eyes?” 

Asa shakes his head. “Red eyes.”

She briefly considers asking what the different eye colors mean-- the only other demon she’d encountered with the Winchester boys had black eyes, anyway-- but she doesn’t want to look like an amateur. 

“You think John Winchester was working this case?”

“Yeah, I know he’s been in Sacramento for a little while, so I’m hitting up any mysterious deaths or disappearances he might have worked,” she explains. 

“Well, I can tell you John wasn’t on this one. I would’ve run into him. I’ve been here since two days after the crime.”

She nods, signing, reaching for her Razr and flipping it open. “That’s good to know. Thank you. Uh, I should head out, then, if the trail’s cold. You mind giving me that number?”

He takes his own phone out of his pocket and reads it to her. She saves it as a contact. She saves Asa’s number too, just in case. 

“Good luck out there,” he offers.

“Oh, actually, I have one more question.”

“Yeah?”

“How can I get a gun fast?”

+

The other two past cases are a bust, too. John probably did work them, she figures, but he didn’t leave behind any breadcrumbs. She calls Jim Murphy, but he isn’t really been able to tell her anything she didn’t already know.

(this clearly isn’t the move, she muses as she drives back to her motel. i guess i just have to start asking around at motels.)

She makes a list of all of the physical characteristics she knows about John, jotting them down on the back of a gas station receipt:

-Probably at least 6 feet tall  
-Dark hair, maybe greying or balding  
-Dark brown eyes  
-Mid 50s

(yeah. that’s not a lot to go off.)

If she had the cooperation of his sons, she could add the car he drives, possibly aliases, and a more precise height and hair description. But she’s on her own, nothing to go off except the picture of him and Sam’s mother from when they were in their early 30s Sam had kept in the living room.

She’s driving to the third motel on her list when her phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Jess. I’m flying to Tahoe,” Sam says. “Can you pick me up from the airport?”

She blinks. “Uh, yeah, of course. When do you land?”

(fuck.)

She flicks on her turn signal to go around the block to go back to her motel room to hurriedly pack up.

“Plane takes off in about an hour, and then it’s five hours, I think.”

(oh good. that’s plenty of time.)

“Right,” she says. “Great. So you land at like, what… 4pm local time?”

“Something like that.”

“I’ll be waiting. Uh-- why are you coming back? Are you okay?”

Sam exhales slowly. “It was a whole thing. I’ll tell you all about it. Dean had kind of a close call… it shook me up a little. He wants to go to Indiana again for some reason anyway, so I figured I’d come meet up with you and then I can catch up with my brother for the next case, once he’s done doing whatever he does in Indiana.”

“He didn’t tell you?” she asks, frowning, barely running through a yellow light before it goes red.

“No. He told me it’s just a place he likes to go to blow off steam. Cicero, Indiana. They have some bar he likes going to, or something.”

“Uh, okay.”

(he’s lying, she thinks-- part weird psychic stuff, partly just an honest appraisal of the situation. but once she thinks the words, she knows them, and they flower a little bit; he’s keeping a secret, and he has been for years, and it’s a life or death secret, it’s really important. cicero, indiana. it’s life or death for dean winchester.)

She considers mentioning this to Sam. Decides not to, for now. 

“My phone’s dying, baby, I’m sorry-- it was kind of a last minute thing.”

“Yeah,” she says, blinking out of her head. “Yeah. I’ll see you at the airport in a few hours. I love you, Sam.”

“I love you too. Bye.”

He hangs up. She rushes to leave Sacramento.

+

When he meets her at the baggage claim, a wide grin at his lips, he doesn’t seem to suspect that anything is off. So she smiles back and hugs him and takes his hand to lead him to the car, and she hopes she can continue to get away with the lie.

“So what have you been up to?” He asks as she turns the car on.

“Oh, you know. Not too much. Swimming, hiking, reading.” She shrugs.

(shit. there’s like, no food in the lake house. he’s gonna question that.)

“Um, but I’m overdue for a grocery run-- are you really tired, or do you mind if we stop on the way?” She adds on.

“No, that’s fine. We can stop somewhere.”

“Great. So-- what was the close call with Dean?”

“It’s a long story,” Sam sighs. “Basically he got electrocuted really bad. The doctor said he had maybe a month.”

“Like, a month before he would die?” Jess asks, her eyes widening a little-- she hadn’t realized it was that kind of a close call--

“Yeah. Every part of his body was damaged, basically. All his organs. He looked worse and worse by the hour. His skin was all pale and he had these awful bags under his eyes. So I uh, I sort of went out on a limb… and I took him to a faith healer.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, I figured, I might as well, you know, try. It’s not the craziest thing I’ve ever heard about.”

“And the guy was legit?” She asks.

“Yeah. Well-- again, long story. The faith healer’s wife was doing it. She had a reaper on a leash. But the important part is, Dean is gonna be okay. He’s totally cured.”

“That’s good.”

(insane. this is insane. how am i just supposed to be comfortable with)

“Yeah, it is,” Sam says, cutting her thought off. “It was touch and go there for a minute. No wonder he wanted to take a load off in Cicero.”

(whatever is in cicero, it’s not a load off, she thinks to herself. it’s like when you have an anxiety dream and you have to get up to check that the door is locked. that’s what a trip to cicero is for him. there’s no night club or dive bar or whatever he says it is.)

But Dean might be keeping his secret for good reason, she figures tiredly, and it really isn’t any of her business, so she’ll keep quiet for now.

Anyway, it’s not like she has any sort of concrete answer about what kind of secret it is.

“It was really intense,” Sam adds after a beat of quiet, sighing. “Maybe even more intense than Kansas. I just-- I really thought I was gonna lose him, you know?” He sort of half-chuckles, a little puff of air. 

“Yeah,” Jess says. “I’m sorry. That must have been really stressful.”

“Kinda made me appreciate him more. And… you know what I was thinking?”

“Huh?”

“When Dean was dying, I called my dad, and he wouldn’t even answer. I called him like five times. Just kept getting his voicemail. It was an emergency and I couldn’t even get a hold of the guy.” Sam exhales slowly, shaking his head. “My brother… he’s always been the one who was there for me, you know? He was taking care of me when he was just a little kid himself. And my dad wouldn’t even answer his goddamn phone when we really needed him.”

(i hate him. i hate john winchester so much)

“That’s fucked up,” Jess agrees, trying to quell the heat behind her forehead, the rage she feels toward this man she’s never even met.

(when i find him--)

“Yeah. But Dean still hero worships the man.”

(i just don’t get why.)

“We all… have skewed ideas about our parents,” Jess settles for saying. “My mom and dad, I mean… I was kind of just starting to see the cracks in the facade when they died. You have to grow up and have some distance to understand that stuff. Dean-- he’s barely had distance from your dad. You moved out at eighteen, but he’s twenty-seven and just barely having his first year without your dad. I think he just needs time.”

“You’re so smart,” Sam says with another half chuckle. “You always know what to say. How do you always know what to say?”

“It’s a gift,” she answers with a tight smile and a shrug.

“I told him to call when he gets to Cicero. It shouldn’t be too much longer.”

“Does he have your gun and stuff?” Jess asks.

“My brother? Yeah, I left my gear in the Impala. Figured I’m not gonna need it until I catch back up with him anyway.”

She nods, remembering the navy blue handled .45 she has tucked into her purse, hoping Sam won’t happen to find it.

“What do you want for dinner?” She asks to change the subject. Maybe they can go his whole stay without talking about anything supernatural. If it doesn’t come up, it’s not lying, anyway.

“I dunno. I would love to eat a vegetable, frankly. Dean keeps dragging me to the greasiest places he can find.”

She laughs a little. “Vegetables, it is. We’ll see what’s in season when we get to the store.”

“Hey, by the way-- we’re only about two hours out from Sacramento, right?”

Her ears go a little hot. “Yeah, something like that,” she says.

“We could head up there at some point over the next few days. See if we can get anything on my dad. I know it isn’t the full fledged demon investigation you’re holding out for, but it’s something.”

“Oh. Yeah. Maybe. If you want to.”

“Don’t you want to?”

She can feel Sam’s eyes on her.

“Yeah, of course!” She says too brightly. “Just that you said you’re worn out from the thing with Dean. I wouldn’t want you to overdo it.”

“Oh, I’ll be fine after a couple good nights of sleep and some fresh air.”

She nods uneasily. “Super.”

+

They cook dinner together, do some laundry, watch one of the old VHS tapes for something to do. 

Once they’re in bed he slips his hand under her shirt, but she moves it, kissing his knuckles with a quiet “I’m too tired”. 

(i’m not going to have sex with him when i’m lying. not when i know i’m going to go straight back to sacramento to look for john the second sam is out of my hair. that’s not fair to him.)

Normally she doesn’t feel the need to give him a reason-- she would just say ‘not right now’. But now that she’s saying no for a reason she can’t tell him, she feels the need to lie and say something. He doesn’t seem to notice the shift. Just falls asleep next to her.

She lays awake all night.

+

In the morning they go for a hike and a swim. They eat chips and guacamole for lunch. Sam reads for hours, an old paperback he found in the library, which he stops to complain about every twenty pages or so. Jess reads about demons. The day after, they look for short term work to earn some money.

They waste a week and a half this way.

The eleventh day after Sam’s arrival, sitting out on the sun-soaked deck, phone hidden behind a magazine, Jess hazards a text to Dean Winchester.

JESS: Hey, do you know when you’re going to be ready to meet up with Sam again?

He doesn’t text back. Within ten minutes, though, he calls.

(ugh)

She glances Sam’s way. He’s wrapped up in another paperback. Didn’t react at all to her phone ringing. So she sets the magazine down and wanders into the house, trying to be casual about it. Once she’s inside, she takes the call.

“Hi, Dean.”

“Heya, blondie,” he says. She can hear the Impala in the background; he’s driving. “Why you so eager to ditch my kid brother, huh? He getting on your nerves with his whole mopey nerd gambit?”

“No,” she huffs. “I just think he’s kind of antsy and could use a case.”

“So find one,” Dean suggests.

She glances out the window-- Sam is still reading. Her feet carry her into the kitchen before she replies. “I told you I don’t want to hunt until we find the demon.”

“Ha. Well, I’m a little busy up here.”

“Doing what? What keeps bringing you back to Cicero?”

A beat passes before Dean replies. “I left Cicero, actually,” he says. “I’m in Missouri. Old flame of mine, Cassie, she called with a case.”

(poor cassie)

“You’re working a case, and you didn’t want Sam to come help?”

“I got this one. Cassie’s helping out. Anyway, it’s all the way across the damn country and I didn’t want to ruin your little honey moon week.”

She toys with the dial on the toaster, twisting it back and forth a few times. “Well, it’s cheaper to buy plane tickets in advance.”

Dean laughs a little. “Listen, Barbie, if my brother’s driving you crazy, just say so.”

“That’s not--” she messes with her hair while she thinks. “Yeah, you know, he can be kind of annoying.” She cringes hard.

“There it is!”

“He’s just kind of uptight lately.”

“Yeah, I know how you feel. Dude can be high strung. Like, unclench your butthole for five minutes a day, you’ll feel better.”

“I’ve been trying to do more research about demons, and he keeps interrupting me.”

“No kidding? But the dude loves research. He’s practically Doc Brown.”

“Uhh--” (shit) “Yeah, but he likes hiking and swimming more, and we’re right on the lake, so…”

“Swimming? Sammy can’t swim.”

She almost laughs, smiling fondly at the memory. “Yeah, he can. I taught him how when we were nineteen or so. The first time he came here with my family.”

“Oh,” Dean says flatly. “Adorable.”

“Anyway, um, just keep it in mind, okay? Next case you get, call him?”

“Scout’s honor.”

“And don’t tell him we talked.”

“Alright, yeah, my lips are sealed,” he says.

“Thanks. Bye.” She hangs up. Gets a glass of water just to do something, fumbling with the cabinet a little bit.

She really wants Sam gone. She loves him, but she wants him gone. And she feels awful about it.

+

It doesn’t take much longer for her to get her wish. Two nights later, she wakes up to Sam tripping over the laundry hamper.

She pulls air into her lungs. Looks at the bedside clock. “Babe, are you okay? It’s four in the morning.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m looking for my phone. Sorry I woke you up.”

“No worries.” She yawns into her hand. “What’s going on, Sam?”

“I had a dream,” he says, finding his phone, flipping it open. “Dammit. It’s dead. Can I use yours? I have to call my brother.”

“Yeah, uh, sure.” She fumbles for the lamp, squinting at its yellow light. Her phone is on the nightstand, plugged in. She offers it to him.

“Thanks.” He flips it open and makes the call, stuffing clothes into his duffel with his other hand. “Dean, hi, it’s me. Get up. You gotta meet me in Michigan.”

“Michigan?” She hears Dean’s sleepy, distant voice ask. “What?”

“I just had another vision. We have to go.”

“Sorry, Lisa,” Dean’s voice comes. Jess frowns. He says something else, but she doesn’t hear it. 

(lisa? is that who lives in cicero? a few days ago it was cassie. how many women does he have on rotation?)

“Yeah. Saginaw, Michigan. I’m about to call the plates in. I’m going to meet you there as soon as I can. It’s a couple hours north of Chicago. If you’re still in central Indiana, it should only be a few hours away-- yeah. Okay. Thanks, Dean.” Sam flips her Razr shut and hands it back to her.

“I’m sorry I woke you up,” he says again.

“Don’t worry about it.” She reaches for him as he sits back down on the bed, her hand settling on his back. “What did you see?”

He shakes his head. “A guy in a car. I don’t know. I need to write down the license plate before I forget it.”

He reaches for his book, which he’d left on his nightstand, and finds a pen in the drawer. He jots the number down on the index card he’d been using as a bookmark. Then, he moves to plug his phone in. “You think if I get a flight to LAX, I’ll be able to make it to Michigan today?”

“Uh, I don’t know. Maybe you should have Dean meet you in Chicago or something.”

“Hmm.” He lays back down, rubbing at his eyes. “Yeah, maybe. I kinda just want Dean to get there as soon as he can and start without me. This is a time sensitive situation.”

“Right,” she says.

(if sam leaves, i can go back to sacramento)

“I think you should just get that flight to LAX,” she decides out loud. “I’ll take you to the airport. We can go right now, if you want. There’s usually a 7am flight from here to LAX, and the airport is a good hour from here, so we should get moving soon if you want to be on it.”

“I don’t wanna make you get up,” he says apologetically.

She offers him a smile. “Hey, if someone’s in danger, you gotta move, right?”

(i wish my motives were that pure.)

Sam falls for it, though. He smiles too. Leans over to kiss her briefly. “Yeah. You’re right.”

She’s back in Sacramento on John Winchester’s trail by ten in the morning.

+

After a few more motels checked, and no sign of John, she finds herself frustrated all over again.

(how hard is it to find one dude, seriously,) she thinks as she checks into the last motel of the day. She has to remind herself why she’s doing this: to avenge her parents’ deaths, to make sure the demon doesn’t kill anyone else, to put a pin into this dark chapter so she can go back to Palo Alto with Sam and start fresh. Grad school, in a couple years get married, maybe have a kid or two once their careers are in place. Pretend not to know about demons or ghosts or whatever other monsters they’ve faced over the past several months.

(if you ever want to get back on track, she thinks glumly, you need to see this through.)

So once she’s behind the locked door of her motel room, she does the one thing she can think to do. She calls Asa Fox.

“Hey,” he answers after four or five rings.

“Hi, Asa, it’s Jess Moore. We met a few weeks ago in Sacramento.”

“Yeah, I remember. What’s going on?”

“I’m new to hunting. I just wanted to ask you if maybe there’s some kind of… hunter hotspot? Like are there any places hunters go to hang out? I’m still looking for John Winchester, and I’m kind of coming up empty.”

“Oh, yeah. There’s Harvelle’s Roadhouse in Nebraska, that’s the main stopover,” Asa says. She can hear car sounds in the background; he must be driving. “But if you have reason to believe he’s still in NorCal, I think there’s a place outside Frisco. You know Mount Diablo?”

She nods, though he can’t see her, and flicks her key card around her hand a few times. “Yeah.”

“Little convenience store with a cafe called Erickson’s. They have a few rooms for rent in the back, really under the radar since they only deal in cash. You’re not gonna find it in any phone book or anything. It’s just a little nondescript wood building with an American flag flying and no signs. Flamingos out front. It’s by the north side of the mountain, sort of on the way to a town called Clayton.”

“Clayton,” she repeats, reaching for the motel notepad and pen to jot down the directions. “Thanks, Asa. That’s a huge help.”

“No prob. If the fella behind the counter gives you trouble, tell ‘em I sent you. He’s a grumpy motherfucker but he’s a friend of mine.”

She laughs a little. “Okay. Great. Thanks.”

“Good luck.”

“You too.” She hangs up, finishing her note, ripping it off the pad and sticking it into her journal. Finally some kind of a lead.

+

She heads out in the morning, figuring she might as well keep her motel room-- this unmarked convenience store/cafe/hotel sounds kind of sketchy, and even though she has a gun and pepper spray in her purse, she’s still a twenty-three year old girl on her own.

Mount Diablo is one of those places she heard hushed stories about, growing up. Mysterious disappearances. They happen in any national park, anyplace that sees its share of hikers, but allegedly they happen more and worse here. On top of that, she recalls stories of mysterious lights, ghost panthers, frog rain-- a whole laundry list of creepy stuff she would have discounted if she’d thought about it any day of her life before November 2, 2005. But now she’s inclined to believe it all.

Which is why she’s taking on this fool’s errand during the daylight.

She finds the place Asa Fox described without too much trouble. She parks in the small parking lot and wades through twenty or thirty lawn flamingoes. There’s an OPEN sign, so she lets herself in.

It’s a sparse convenience store sandwiched by buzzing fluorescents above and crusty, yellowed linoleum tile below. Between are shelves of beef jerky, potato chips, canned goods, energy drinks, six packs of beer-- the basic hunter gourmet, as well as a couple racks of newspapers, un-hidden porn magazines, and road maps. Off to one side is a cluster of tables and a line of cracked vinyl booths, only one of which is populated by an older man peering at a laptop, a cup of coffee and a half-eaten muffin littered in front of him.

There’s no one behind the counter when she enters, but by the time she’s taken the place in, a middle-aged woman has taken up the position.

“Help you find anything?” She asks in a bored east coast accent.

“I’m looking for a man who might have passed through here,” Jess says brightly, offering the woman a smile. “John Winchester?”

“He was here,” the woman confirms.

“How long ago?”

She shrugs. “Few days ago. He turns up with the nighttime crowd for beer and whiskey and poker.”

(guess it was stupid to think i could deal with this under the protection of daylight.)

“Great,” Jess says. “Thank you so much. Are you guys open tonight?”

“Ayuh. Until midnight.”

“Perfect. Thank you so much.” With another flash of a grin, she leaves. 

+

She comes back around eight, and plants herself in a booth, slowly sipping an iced tea. She stays there for hours. People come and go, drink and gamble-- but nobody who resembles John Winchester.

She waits until they close. Doesn’t leave until the lights come on.

“Dammit,” she huffs under her breath as she unlocks Sam’s car. (now i’m stuck here in the middle of the night, in the dark, in the middle of nowhere by a mountain that is supposedly haunted or something.)

(i want a drink.)

It occurs to her how silly it is to leave a place that was slinging cheap beer and whiskey wanting a drink, but the frustration of the evening (and her life as a whole) has caught up with her. She has too much energy to just go to sleep, anyway.

The dark roads around Mount Diablo seem to flicker in and out as she drives them. A few times, she swears she sees something out of the corner of her eye, in the recesses of her rear view mirror. 

(you’re just on high alert because of everything. and the stories and stuff. it’s nothing. are you seriously afraid of a ghost panther? you have a gun and salt and holy water. don’t be stupid.)

Her hands grip the steering wheel tightly. She notices she’s almost out of gas. 

Barely enough to make it back to her motel-- she’s running on fumes by the time she does. But that’s a problem for tomorrow.

She parks. There’s a dive bar just down the street. She can feel heat coming off it, almost, like she’s being nudged in that direction.

(one drink. just to blow off steam.)

In her previous life, she wouldn’t do something like this-- go for a drink alone at one in the morning at a seedy bar-- but she’s different now. And she has a .45 in her purse.

So she heads inside, flashes her real i.d., and orders a vodka cranberry with extra lime.

She takes a seat at the edge of the bar, stationed near the kitchen entrance, figuring that’s the best way to avoid getting unnecessarily hit on, and she starts reviewing her notes about the yellow-eyed demon.

Palo Alto, CA: attempted murder of me, Nov. 2. Successful murder of neighbor two weeks later.  
Edna, CA: murder of my parents, Nov. 18.

Well, with just the two instances listed, it looks stupid. She sighs. Takes a swig of her drink.

“Something on your mind?” A deep voice comes from behind her.

She almost jumps in surprise, but manages to keep her cool. She turns around. A tall man with baggy, dark eyes and black stubble stands there, a beer in his hand, a dark green canvas jacket on his shoulders. 

Jess blinks. “Just studying,” she says. 

“At a bar in the middle of the night?” The man smiles a little bit, and for a second she’s almost charmed by the twinkle in his eye.

(but then she gauges his age, mid 50s, and she’s grossed out. why do old men think they can come up to young women and just talk to them?)

“Yeah,” she says, offering a friendly grin, turning back to her notes. 

“You look too nice to be in a place like this. Maybe you oughta let me take you someplace nicer.”

“I’m not as nice as you think I am,” she replies without looking up. 

He sits down next to her.

Without meaning to, she turns to look at him, takes him in without the pretense of the sparkling eyes-- dark stubble, tall frame, weathered brown irises-- she can even see where Dean got eyelashes and nose from, where Sam got his cheekbones--

“Are you John Winchester?” The half-finished vodka cranberry asks for her.

His face flattens. He sets his beer down. “How do you know my name?”

“You’re hunting the yellow eyed demon,” Jess says. She turns her notebook toward him; his eyes flicker, and narrow as he takes in the topic of her notes.

“I might be,” he says coldly. “Who’re you?”

“I’m Jessica. I’m Sam’s girlfriend. The one who was almost killed by the demon in November.”

He stands up. “Take my advice, kid. Go home. Forget any of that ever happened.”

“I don’t have a home because that demon burnt it to the ground,” she insists, stumbling to stand up too-- “Are you close?”

“Does Sam know you’re here?”

“That doesn’t matter. Are you close to finding the demon?”

He shakes his head. Rubs his hand over his mouth, the exact same way Dean does-- he’s still wearing his wedding ring. “Yeah. I’m close. So let me take care of it, okay? I’ll get it done. Get out of this mess while you still can. And don’t try to find me again.”

He’s leaving the bar.

She fumbles for a $10 bill to leave and shoves her notebook back into her bag. Hurries after him. He’s already out the door, though, and by the time she makes it, he’s gone.

She turns around a few times. Takes in her surroundings. Dark Sacramento streets, the edge of the city, a bum sleeping on a bench, a young couple arguing across the street, cars, trash. He could have gone in any direction. He’s probably already driving away in some unremarkable car.

“Son of a bitch,” she huffs.

It takes her a second to accept defeat enough to start walking back to her motel, her bag on her shoulder, her hands stuffed into the pockets of her denim jacket. 

(you had him. you had him. all this time spend tracking him and you accidentally run into him at some stupid dive bar)

But then again, maybe it wasn’t an accident. Maybe that pull she’d felt, that unfamiliar urge to Get A Drink, had been a part of her creepy intuition thing.

(why does he have to be such a dick, jesus christ)

“Where are you rushing off to, sweetheart?”

The voice spikes against her spine. It takes her off guard. She stops without meaning to.

She’s passing an alley. A trio of young men, maybe a few years older than Jess, stand around with lit cigarettes hanging out of their mouths.

She gets her bearings and moves to start walking again, but the lapse was enough. One of them has his sweaty, bony hand around her arm.

“Let go of me,” she asserts.

“Aww, be nice,” the man says. “We just wanna talk. Right, boys?”

“Not gonna hurt you,” another one pipes up. He takes a final drag off his cigarette and flicks it to the ground.

Her ears go hot. She tries to twist out of his grasp.

“You’re awfully pretty,” the man holding onto her arm says with a dry smile. She can smell the cigarette smoke coming off of him, along with earthen sweat, and the burn of alcohol. “What’s a pretty girl like you doing around here?”

(that does seem to be the fucking question of the night.)

“Let go of me,” she repeats.

“Play nice,” the man hisses. He leans closer to her. 

(oh my god. fine. fuck you.)

She fumbles to reach into her purse, and draws out the gun. Pulls the hammer back, pointing it in his face. “Let go of me or I’ll blow your fucking face off.”

His eyes widen in fear, or surprise, or something else, and he all but trips off of her. Gun still pointed in their direction, she backs away. “That’s what I thought. Asshole.”

“We were just trying to make conversation,” the second man coughs, holding his hands up in surrender. “You don’t gotta go all psycho bitch on us.”

No reason to respond, she backs away further, still holding the gun up until she’s a good thirty feet away. Then, she releases the barrel, and shoves her hand into her purse, still holding the gun. She walks back to the motel like this. Just in case. Her heart thumps angrily in her forehead. 

(i fucking hate men,) she thinks as she shoves her key card into the slot and unlocks her room. 

+

Out of ideas, she goes back to the lakehouse. Takes some babysitting jobs, cleans out an old lady’s attic, spends her downtime reading up on demons and exorcism lore. Three days into that, she’s bored out of her mind and itching to hunt, even if it means giving up on the yellow eyed demon for now-- at least it would be doing something useful.

She calls Sam one evening, a half-eaten quesadilla in front of her. 

“Hey, Jess,” he says when he answers. “How’s Tahoe?”

“Oh, not too bad. How’s Michigan?”

He sighs. She can hear Dean talking in the background, and the even thump of rain. “Frustrating. This guy, Max… he has something wrong with him. I can’t tell you right now ‘cause there are people around, but… he has something sort of like us.”

“Visions in his dreams? Or the intuition thing I keep doing?”

“Neither. Something else. But same kind of thing.”

“Creepy mind powers?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit. Do you think he’s like… I mean, ours only started last fall…”

“Yeah,” Sam sighs. “His too. Same time. Something weird is going on here. I could really use your help, baby. I was going to call you.”

“It’ll take me a few days to drive to Saginaw. Should I head out now?”

“Wait, you… you’ll come? I thought you were tired of hunting things other than you know what.”

“I’m bored,” she says, and it isn’t even a lie. She stands up and takes the food scraps to the trash. “I’ve been doing a ton of research from the lakehouse, and I can’t get any leads on the demon anyway, so I might as well come hunt with you guys until something comes up.”

“Great,” Sam says, and he sounds relieved-- she frowns a little, guilt welling up behind her ears. 

(he needs my help. but he was putting off asking because he thought i’d resist. maybe i’m becoming a terrible girlfriend.)

(maybe this demon thing is ruining my relationship.)

An antsy spike drives into her spine at just the thought of their relationship ending. 

“I’ll get packed and head out, okay?” She says a beat too late for it to be normal. “I love you, Sam. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Awesome. Hey, I love you too.”

“Talk to you soon.”

She hangs up. 

+

On her way out of California, she stops at a bookstore and buys a couple audio books on the occult. The four day drive to Michigan is a long, slow blur of the same demonic anecdotes and the same gas station granola bars and iced tea. But as soon as he gets there, the exhaustion of the mundane trip is replaced by a hit of anticipatory adrenaline. She kind of missed hunting.

She calls Sam as soon as she sees the WELCOME TO SAGINAW sign, lodging her phone between her shoulder and her cheek so she can steer with both hands. The phone rings several times as she hits the brakes, slowing down along the exit ramp, rolling into the quiet residential street.

But then, finally, an answer.

“Heya, Jess,” Dean’s voice comes. “Sammy’s in the shower. You close?”

“I’m just getting into town. Where are you guys? What motel?”

“Twin Pines Motor Court. South side of town, on Franklin Street. We finished the case up so we were just gonna relax for the night and start looking for the next slasher film tomorrow.”

She glances to the compass on the dash, almost a little disappointed that they wrapped up the case without her. “Got it. I’m headed south right now. Is Sam okay?”

“Uh, yeah,” Dean says, his voice carrying a weird lightness.

“Dean.”

“Listen, shit went a little sideways, okay? We sorta watched a guy shoot himself in the head. Not quite the storybook ending Sam was hoping for. You know how he is. All dreamy. Fuckin’ thinks everything’s gonna turn out peaches and cream. But he’s in one piece, that’s what matters.”

“Are you in one piece?” She asks, her heart thudding hard as she says it, as she verbally expresses concern for Dean Wincehster for the first time in the six or seven months since she met the guy. He’s infuriating and he might actually be the most annoying person she’s ever met, but it’s not like she hates him or anything.

“Me? Oh, I’m rosy. We’re good, blondie. Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worrying.”

Her hands tighten around the steering wheel. Her shoulder tightens against her cell phone.

+

She makes it to the hotel just as Sam is coming out of the bathroom. His eyes are pink, and she doesn’t get the impression it’s from an errant smudge of shampoo. But he smiles when he sees her, and crosses the room to give her a still-damp hug.

“Sorry I missed out on the action,” she says into his shoulder.

“It’s okay. We handled it.” He lets go of her. Goes to drop his toiletries bag back into his duffel. “I’m glad you’re here now, though. I gotta… tell you guys something. Both of you.”

She watches Dean’s face change out of her peripheral vision, his eyebrows quirking upward, the corners of his lips twitching downward. “Oh?” He says. 

“Yeah,” Sam says. He glances from his girlfriend to his brother. “I’ve been thinking.”

“That’s never a good sign,” Dean jokes.

“I’m serious,” Sam huffs.

Jess shoots Dean a look. “Thinking about what, Sam?”

“Jess… this case, it was connected to the yellow-eyed demon.”

Her blood goes cold.

“What?”

“Yeah. Max’s mother… she died the exact same way ours did. By his crib when he was a baby. Pinned to the ceiling, fire, all of it.”

“The same way I almost died,” Jess hears herself say.

Sam almost seems to flinch. “Yeah. But the common denominator here is killing a mother and leaving a baby unharmed. So I’m just… I’m thinking, what does the demon want? What’s the point?”

“I don’t know,” Dean says.

“Do you think maybe it was after us? Me and Max, when we were babies?” Sam asks. “And then it was after you, too, Jess?”

“It just tried to kill me,” she says, blinking.

“Yeah, but why?” Sam asks, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth for a second. “If it just wanted you dead, why did it stop when it heard me come home?”

“That’s a good point,” Dean says. “No reason to stop. A demon could have your neck snapped in two seconds flat if it wanted to.”

“That’s really nice, Dean,” Jess says, harsher than she means to.

“Hey, just being honest. Demons are vicious motherfuckers.”

“Max had telekinesis,” Sam says, turning to Jess. “I have premonitions in my dreams. You know stuff that you shouldn’t know. It’s like you can sense danger. We all have something kind of different, but kind of the same, too. And it all started at the same time. So maybe it’s because of the demon.”

“Why would a demon give us special powers?”

“This is stupid,” Dean cuts in. “If it wanted you two dead, you’d be dead. This isn’t about you. It's about that damn thing that did this to our family-- your family too, Jess. The thing that we're gonna find, the thing that we're gonna kill. And that's all.”

“There’s…” Sam sighs. “There’s something else too.”

“Ah, jeez,” Dean huffs. “What?”

“When Max left me in that closet, with that big cabinet against the door... I moved it.”

Jess frowns, trying to understand exactly what he means by that.

“Ha. Muscle man, huh?”

“No, Dean. I moved it. Like Max. I moved it with my mind.”

Jess’ breath gets caught somewhere in her ribcage. She reaches for the wall to steady herself. 

(i’m next aren’t i)

“Oh,” Dean says, going a little stiff. He looks to Jess for a second. “That’s… huh.” He picks up a pen off the nightstand. “Move this.”

“No, Dean, I can’t do it on command,” Sam says, his face a little red. “I couldn’t control it. I just had a vision of Max killing you, and it just came out of me like a freak adrenaline thing.”

“Well, I’m sure it ain’t gonna happen again,” Dean says with an easy shrug. “You just said it yourself. A freak adrenaline thing.”

(that’s not all it is.) Jess says nothing.

“Aren’t you worried, man?” Sam asks his brother. “Aren’t you worried I could… get vengeful like Max, or something?” His eyes flit toward Jessica.

“Nope. No way. You know why?”

“Why?” Sam asks.

“You got something Max didn’t have. You got me.” He smirks a little bit. “And as long as I’m around, nothing bad is gonna happen to you.”

Sam’s eyes turn downward. He nods a little bit.

(he really thinks he’s some hero. but i don’t trust him to look out for sam the way he says he does. i shouldn’t have ditched out on them, i should be here for sam. at least i know if something life-threatening is going to happen, i’ll know about it in advance, jess thinks quietly.)

“Anyway. Who’s hungry? We’ve been fighting crazy and you’ve been driving all day. Let’s get a frickin’ burger,” Dean says like it’s nothing.

+

Two similar disappearances in as many months lead Jess and the Winchester brothers four hours southwest to Chicago. Jess quietly gets a pretty heavy EMF reading in the missing girl’s apartment, having slipped in through the fire escape, while the boys pretend to be security system repairman and grill the building’s landlady. 

“That symbol on the carpet, man, I’m telling you. There’s something up with that,” Dean comments as they eat dinner after leaving the apartment.

“I don’t know, Dean. It was just splatters on the floor. Maybe there is no symbol.” 

“I think Dean’s right,” Jess says, fidgeting with the label on her beer. “Since when is anything ever a coincidence or an accident or ‘just’ anything when it comes to supernatural stuff?”

Dean gestures toward her, nodding emphatically. “Listen to your girl, Sammy.”

Sam shrugs. “I guess it’s worth looking into.”

“The thing I don’t understand is--”

She stops talking without meaning to. Her eyes catch on a short blonde woman in a leather jacket, not twenty feet away.

(is that the girl from the bus station? in, uh… where was it. nebraska?)

“Jess?” Sam nudges. “You don’t understand what?”

“Is that the girl we met in Nebraska?” She asks. 

Sam follows her gaze, and his eyebrows lift. “Yeah. That’s her, alright.”

“Who?” Dean makes a face.

“Just some girl we met at the bus station,” Jess answers. She shakes her head. “She was going to California. Kinda weird to see her here, right?”

(you just said it yourself. no coincidences when it comes to the supernatural.)

“I’m going to go say hi,” Jess decides, standing. “Be right back.”

She talks to Meg for a minute. The girl acts completely normal. Suggests they go for a girls’ night while they’re both in town. Dodges the falsely friendly questions Jess asks her. 

+

“She’s probably just a girl trying to escape her past, or whatever,” Dean dismisses as the three of them leave the diner.

“No, Dean, it’s weird,” Jess argues. “She was going to California. And now she’s here.”

“Yeah, you guys were going to California, and now you’re here, too.”

“Sam?”

“Yeah, Dean, Jess is right. It’s weird.”

“Making a fuckin’ laundry list of shit for me to research while you two play secret agents, huh? Alright,” Dean huffs. “I’ll check her out. You know her name?”

“Meg Masters.”

“Great.” He tosses his keys to Sam, who catches them easily. “I’ll meet you back at the motel once I get the intel. And the first words out of my mouth will be ‘I told you so’.”

\+ 

Sam and Jess wait for Meg to emerge, and when she does, they follow her to the edge of the city. They watch from the parked Impala as she heads into what looks like an old factory. Sam slips in after her, with Jess keeping watch from the car. It seems to take Sam forever to re-emerge.

When he does, he tells her what he saw-- Meg doing some sort of ritual with a silver goblet and an alter, telling some invisible presence that the Winchester boys are in town, agreeing to wait for someone. 

“Wait for what?” Jess asks, frowning, as Sam drives them toward the motel.

“I don’t know. But I climbed out of the elevator shaft to take a look once Meg left, and Dean was right-- I saw that same symbol.”

“You… climbed an elevator shaft? Like you just scaled it?”

Sam shrugs.

When they catch back up with Dean, he updates them on his findings; Meg has absolutely nothing suspicious on her digital footprint, and the symbol represents something called a Daeva, a demon of darkness.

“And one more thing,” Dean says gravely. He glances over his shoulder even though they’re in a private motel room. “The two vics? They’re both from Lawrence, Kansas.”

“Our hometown.”

Dean nods. 

(john winchester is in the city. here.)

Jess starts a little at the realization, tugging on her jacket sleeve just for something to do. 

(don’t just say that, she tells herself. maybe you’re wrong. or maybe he is here, but he’s doing something else.)

By the time she tunes back in, the boys are already making a plan to go back to the factory.

+

Her intuition proves correct. John Winchester is in the city. He’s waiting for them when they get back to their motel room, bruised and bloody, after narrowly escaping Meg and destroying her alter, thus ruining what had been her plan all along-- capturing the boys as a trap for their father.

But then her plan proves to be less ruined than it had seemed when a swarm of Daevas come at them minutes into the reunion. Sam thinks on his feet and dispels them. 

And John Winchester goes on his way. 

+

(every time, jess thinks. every time we hear from him or see him or anything like that, it doesn’t do shit for us. the only progress we’ve made has been in spite of him, not because of him. maybe we need to take him out of this whole yellow-eyed demon hunting equation all together. but then again, she adds, the boys will never go for that. especially dean.)

They make the long drive to Texas to investigate a mysterious death with a disappearing corpse. 

“Hey,” Jess pipes up after an hour or two of quiet. “Did you ever hear back from Stanford? About that interview last fall? Weren’t they supposed to email you sometime at the beginning of this year?”

“Oh. Uh…” Sam’s fingers drum against the steering wheel of his car. He seems to be staring at Dean’s Impala on the road in front of them, rather than watching the road itself. “Yeah. I… I didn’t get it.”

“You didn’t get the scholarship?”

“I fucked up the interview,” he admits sheepishly. “They said I can try again next year if I want, but, uh… they had stronger candidates.”

She nods a few times.

(if this thing is even wrapped up by then.)

(am i going to be stuck hunting forever? god damn.)

“That’s okay,” she says after a beat, pushing her voice upward, adding in an easy smile. “Just a minor setback. You had a lot on your mind that day, anyway.”

“Yeah. Uh, hey, totally unrelated, but I had this weird dream while you were in Tahoe.”

Her pulse skitters a little, but she keeps her cool. “A dream about what?”

“I saw you like, driving around a mountain in the middle of the night. Alone. And then getting threatened in this dark alley by a group of drunk guys.”

(oh, shit.)

“That is weird.”

“I guess it must have been some kind of premonition,” Sam says. “I didn’t see how it ended. I guess… watch out for dark alleys.”

“Hey, if a powerful demon can’t take me down, I doubt some drunk guy in a dark alley will be able to,” she jokes.

“That’s not funny, Jess.” He exhales hard, and the car swerves just a little bit under his grip. “I’ve dreamt of you dying so many times. The way you were supposed to, on the ceiling that night, and now this-- I can’t lose you.”

“You’re not going to lose me.” 

“Then why do I keep dreaming about it?” He asks in a small voice that almost breaks her heart.

She reaches for his hand. They’re going straight down an empty back road-- he can spare one. “I don’t know, Sam. I’m sorry. But I’m not going to die. Maybe not every dream you have is a premonition, you know? Maybe some are just… shitty dreams made from stuff in your subconscious or stuff you’re worried about. And even if I’m supposed to die, even if that’s my like… destiny, or fate, or whatever you wanna call it… we don’t accept it. We can both see the future in some capacity. So we’ll make our own decisions and we’ll be okay, ‘cause we’re in charge of our own lives. Right?”

“Yeah,” he says, still quiet. “Yeah. Right.

+

In Texas they work a case that turns out to be a tulpa. The boys get caught up in a prank war, which Jess plays dumb about, ‘accidentally’ foiling their hijinks left and right-- but she plays the long game, and she gets them both once the case is solved and the annoying Ghost Facer guys drive off.

From there, it’s on to Wisconsin after a tip from the boys’ father, where they work with a kid to save his little brother from a monster called a Shtriga, something Sam and Dean tangled with themselves as little kids. 

And after that, finally, weeks after their run-in with Meg and her Daevas-- they find their way back to the yellow-eyed demon’s trail.

+

“Finding anything?”

Jess glances up from her laptop screen to see Sam hovering over her, standing on the other side of the small motel table. She yawns into her palm before answering. “No. Looks like the whole state of Nebraska is taking a nap.”

“Ha. Wish the other 49’d join them.”

“Are you finding anything?”

He shakes his head. “No. No mysterious deaths or disappearances. Nothing in Wyoming or the Dakotas either. A woman in Iowa fell 10,000 feet from an airplane and survived, though,” Sam says, sitting back down on the edge of the bed and looking back down at his own laptop. “Looks like we might have to take some time off. Get some honest work while we’re at it.”

She’s still trying to find a way to tell him saving people from monsters is honest work when Dean lays a few impatient knocks on the door. She knows it’s him without knowing it’s him, though the three knocks are nondescript and unaccompanied by his overmasculine barking. 

(i guess my intuition is getting worse. or, i mean, better. but worse in the sense that i don’t want to become one of the monsters.)

Sam pulls open the door. Sure enough, it’s his brother on the other side, a sloppily folded newspaper in his left hand.

“You two find any messes for us to clean up?” He asks, plopping down on the second bed. It creaks under his weight. He balls up the newspaper and underhands it toward the trashcan, missing.

“Not really,” Jess answers. 

“Yeah, world’s gone quiet,” Sam agrees, reaching for his laptop. He moves to close it, but then he pauses, peering at the screen. “Wait a minute.”

“What?” Jess asks, closing her laptop and standing up.

“Manning, Colorado. Local man, Daniel Elkins, found mauled in his home,” Sam reads off.

Dean frowns. “Manning, Colorado, Daniel Elkins…. I know that name. I think he’s a hunter friend of Dad’s.”

“It would only be a couple hours of driving,” Jess points out. “We might as well head over and take a look.”

+

(colorado is so pretty, she finds herself thinking as they make their way to manning. much, much prettier than nebraska.)

She reaches for the window crank and opens it a few inches. The crisp, mountain air fills her lungs.

“I don’t remember ever hearing the name Daniel Elkins,” Sam mentions. “And if he’s a friend of my dad’s… well, he probably isn’t anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“My dad doesn’t really keep friends. Or, I guess, friends don’t really keep my dad.”

She laughs a little bit. “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.”

“I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when Dean mentioned he hasn’t talked to Bobby in years. I mean, Bobby’s like an uncle to me and Dean. We would spend weeks at a time at his place in South Dakota when we were kids. He’s a really good guy-- one of the best. It was only a matter of time for my dad to rub him wrong.” Sam sighs.

“I guess your dad is just more of an introverted type,” Jess says, figuring it sounds better than what she really thinks, which is (he’s a dick).

“Loner, more like.”

“Mm.”

“Anyway, what I’m getting at… the thing that killed Elkins, it might have been personal. It might have been a grudge, you know? A lot of hunters, they have personal beef with a specific monster.”

(like asa fox in sacramento, jess remembers-- he was looking for that one red eyed demon. she wants to mention this to sam, but it would blow her cover. he still thinks she was lazing around lake tahoe that week.)

“Yeah,” she says. “So we should be careful and keep a look out.”

“You’re turning into a really good hunter, you know that?”

She turns her gaze from the road ahead to Sam, one of her eyebrows barely lifting. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing.”

“It is right now, that’s all that matters. We’ll get back to our normal lives eventually.” He reaches for her hand and presses a kiss to her knuckles. 

+

Daniel Elkins’ place is a mess when Jess and the Winchester boys break in later that night. 

“Clear signs of struggle,” Sam notes.

“Yeah, not to mention that salt circle.” Dean kicks at it, and some of the salt riles into the air, catching against the light from his flashlight.

“There’s a hole in the roof,” Jess notices out loud. “You think whatever attacked him came down through it?”

“Looks like. Probably more than just one of ‘em,” Dean affirms. “Shit. This could be anything.”

Jess wanders out of the main living room and into the kitchen, which is mostly untouched. There are still dishes in the sink, and a box of cereal on the counter, a newspaper out next to it.

“Seems like he put up a hell of a fight,” Sam’s muffled voice comes from the other side of the wall.

Dean responds, but Jess doesn’t really listen. Because she sees something else. A sealed envelope with J. WINCHESTER written on it in large, hurried letters. The pen Elkins must have used is sitting, uncapped, next to it.

“Hey, guys?” Jess calls, picking it up. “I got something.”

+

“Should we open it?” Sam asks later from the passenger seat of the Impala.

Dean exhales, setting his hands on the wheel even though the car is off. “Dunno. Maybe we should try to get ahold of Dad first.”

Jess turns to look out the back window for no real reason. Every nerve in her body tightens when her eyes fall on the shadowy figure of a man, approaching through the darkness. She fumbles to find the lock on the back door.

“Sam, someone is coming toward the car.”

He turns to look. “What?”

“Don’t panic, blondie, you got guys with guns,” Dean says in his I-don’t-give-a-shit voice.

“Is that… Dad?”

Before anyone can answer Sam’s question, John Winchester comes around the side of the car and slides into the empty back seat behind Sam. Jess slides closer to her door an inch or two without really thinking about it.

“Hey, kids,” he says.

“Dad, what’s going on, what are you doing here?” Sam asks.

“I heard the news about Daniel. Got here as fast as I could. I saw you guys in the house.”

“I knew I recognized the name,” Dean says proudly. He reaches back to hand John the envelope. “Looks like he left you a note.”

Without bothering to say thanks, John accepts the envelope and tears it open. 

(he smells like cigarette smoke and sweat, she notices. gross.)

“Son of a bitch had it the whole time,” John concludes after a few seconds of reading. He shoves the letter into his jacket pocket.

“Had what the whole time?” Sam asks.

“When you searched the place, did you, did you see a gun? An antique, a Colt revolver, did you see it?”

“No sir, but I saw an empty case for one,” Dean answers.

“They have it.”

“Who has it?” Jess asks.

“Whatever killed Elkins?” Sam adds.

John reaches for the door. “We gotta pick up the trail.”

“Wait, you want us to come with you?” Sam asks.

“We have to find this gun,” John says, his tone going sharper. “It’s vampires. That’s what Elkins killed best.”

“Aren’t those extinct?”

John shakes his head, opening the door before bothering to answer his older son’s question. “I thought Elkins wiped ‘em all out. I guess I was wrong.”

+

According to John, vampires tend to stay in one place rather than move around like most other monsters do-- meaning they likely have a base somewhere in Manning. He gives Jess and the boys a run down of everything he knows about vampires-- that most commonly accepted lore is just based in fiction. Sunlights, crosses, and stakes to the heart don’t hurt them. The only way to kill a vampire is to chop its head off.

(is there anything that isn’t real? jess muses as she gets ready for bed twenty minutes later. is every single monster from every single horror movie real, except all of them are harder to kill in real life?)

Late the next morning, Dean and John come knocking on Sam and Jess’ door, and John is talking before the door is even all the way open.

“I picked up a police call. A couple called 911, found a body in the street. Cops got there and everyone was missing. It's the vampires.”

“How do you know?” Sam asks, but he’s already reaching for his jacket.

“Just follow me on this one. Dean, Sam, go wait by the car. I wanna talk to your girlfriend alone.”

Sam glances toward Jess. She nods, smiling a little, to let him know it’s okay. But her pulse is riling.

(at least he’s not telling the boys i was in sacramento. yet.)

The door falls shut behind the boys, leaving her alone with their father.

“What’s up?” She asks.

“You need to stay here.”

She feels her eyebrows pull downward, and the anxiety she’d felt toward the man is replaced with a spark of anger. “What? No, I’m coming.”

John shakes his head. “It’s dangerous out there. Vampires are ruthless. If you’re around, Sam’s distracted, and I need his head in the game.”

“Well, tough, because--”

Her own shock cuts her off as John Winchester closes a pair of handcuffs around her left wrist, attaching her to the wooden arm of the outdated motel sofa.

“What the fuck?” she huffs at him, trying to pull away-- but the cuffs are already locked.

“I knew you might resist, so I came prepared. It’s for your own good. And Sam’s,” John says. He sets the TV remote down on the couch and glances around the room for a second. When his eyes fall on her Motorola Razr sitting on the nightstand, he takes it and slips it into his pocket. “I’ll leave your phone and the key in the back seat of Dean’s car so Sam can unlock you when they’re back.”

“What is fucking wrong with you?” 

“Watch your tone.” He stomps out of the motel room and slams the door behind him.

“God dammit,” she huffs, pulling on the cuffs-- but the couch is heavy, and even if she could move it, she wouldn’t be able to just drag it out the door. She doesn’t have a bobby pin in her hair to try to pick the lock with. She doesn’t have a gun handy, since it’s in the nightstand drawer. The motel phone is out of her reach. Her cell phone is in John Winchester’s pocket.

(that’s it. yeah. i fucking hate that guy.)

+

Hours later when the motel room door clicks open, she’s still burning with rage.

“Jess? Oh my god, what happened?” Sam interrogates as soon as he has the door open, already running over to her.

“Your fucking father handcuffed me to a couch,” she snaps. “Because I wouldn’t agree to sit this one out.”

“Holy shit,” Sam breathes. He shakes his head, scoffing, betrayal coloring his eyes and balling his fists up. “He told me he talked you into staying behind. He lied to me. Unbelievable. Are you okay?”

(and you fucking believed him?)

“I’m fine,” she says impatiently. “Are you okay?”

He nods a few times. “Yeah, things got a little dicey, but we got out. Uh, I’ll go grab my lockpick, okay? It’s in the trunk.”

“Your dad left the key in the backseat of the Impala,” she grumbles. “My phone, too.”

“Oh. Okay. Yeah. I’ll go get them,” he says with a nod, heading back for the motel door. “Fucking asshole. I can’t believe he did this.”

(well, i can. and you better hurry, because i have to pee so bad)

He’s back in under a minute, and he unlocks her. She rubs at her reddened wrist, seething, hating John Winchester more and more by the minute.

+

But she’s kind of stuck with him.

Sam is furious, but after a long conversation outside, which Jess overhears bits and pieces of, Dean talks him into seeing this thing through as a family. 

(family doesn’t fucking handcuff each other to motel sofas, jess fumes silently, ripping the newspaper from earlier in half just for something to do with her hands.)

The four of them leave Manning, Colorado, making the nine hour drive to Salvation, Iowa. John had explained that Salvation was showing more and more signs of demonic activity-- cattle mutilation, crop failure, electric storms, the usual. Sam’s blue Chevy tails Dean’s Impala, with John’s lifted truck leading the caravan. 

“I just don’t get why he would even do that,” Sam huffs for what has to be the hundredth time, Jess thinks, as they cross over the border between Nebraska and Iowa.

“He said you’d be distracted if I was around. As if I need you to keep me safe or something.” She rolls her eyes, turning to look out the window at the sparse, dusty scenery of middle America.

“I’m really sorry, Jess. He does a lot of things I don’t agree with. I’m not…” Sam sighs. “Look, once we get this demon, Dean and my dad can go off hunting together again, and you and I, we can go back to Palo Alto.”

She nods.

(but she tries to picture it. tries to imagine them getting a new apartment in california, going to grad school at stanford like they’d planned. she imagines going to the diner and asking for her waitressing job back. none of it looks right in her head. she worries they’ve missed their chance for things to ever be normal again.)

(but then again, she reminds herself, we’re close. that demon’s days are numbered. we can figure it out.)

(as long as we’re together, we’ll be okay.)

She reaches for his right hand, sitting on his knee, and takes it into hers. Sam squeezes her hand and offers her half a smile.

But her cell phone rings not five minutes later. 

“It’s Dean,” she says, fishing it out of her purse. She flips it open. “Hey.”

“Hey, Jess, put me on speaker, I got some news,” Dean says. She can see him in the car ahead of them, holding his phone between his shoulder and head as he drives.

“Yeah.” She fumbles to do so, dropping Sam’s hand in the process. “Okay, you’re on.”

“What’s going on, Dean?” Sam asks from the driver’s seat.

“Two things. First one’s… real bad news, Sammy.” Dean sighs. “Pastor Jim is dead.”

“What? How? Are you sure?” Sam’s face falls. 

“Yeah. Caleb found him. Dad just got off the phone with the guy,” Dean says. “Fuckin’... demonic bullshit. It sounded like Caleb bit the dust too, while Dad was talking to him. ‘Cause Meg killed Jim, and then went to Caleb looking for intel on the Colt. And now she knows Dad has it, and she wants to meet up with him so he can hand it over.”

“What the fuck,” Sam breathes. “This is insane, Dean.”

“No kidding,” Jess mumbles. She rubs at her eyes.

“Look, Dad’s going off to meet with Meg and hand her a decoy. Meanwhile, three of us, we still gotta get to Salvation to get working on the baby thing.”

“Right. Yeah. Find any babies turning six months.”

“Bingo. You guys good to keep driving?”

“Yeah,” Sam confirms. “God. Poor Jim.”

“Yeah. Hey, at least we know that one made it into heaven, if there is such a place.”

Sam half chuckles, but the splinter of a smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Just follow me to the hospital once we hit Salvation, okay?”

“Yeah, Dean,” Jess answers with a nod.

“Bye.”

She flips her phone shut.

“Jim was a good guy,” Sam says quietly.

“I’m sorry, Sam.”

“He took me and Dean in a lot of the time when our dad was on hunting trips, back before we were old enough to join in. It was always him or Bobby.” Sam sighs.

“Well, we’re going to get the demon who keeps killing people, and we’re going to take it down,” Jess says. “For Jim, and for my parents, and for your mom.”

Sam nods. She can’t help but notice how tired he looks.

+

Salvation is another slippery situation that barely ends well. They manage to save at least one mother and six month old baby from the yellow-eyed demon’s attack.

But the demon gets away. Again.

Dean figures they should head up to Sioux Falls to Bobby Singer’s place, since he apparently knows everything about everything when it comes to traps and spells. 

“Figured it was a matter of time before you boys showed up,” Bobby says in good nature when he opens the door. He’s a little more back woods looking than Jess would have expected, with a thick grey beard and a grungey trucker cap that has definitely seen better days. But he invites them in warmly and offers them beer or coffee, and when Sam introduces him and Jess, he gives her a firm handshake and says it’s a pleasure.

They aren’t at Bobby’s long before Meg shows up and walks right into the trap they’d laid for her.

Dean interrogates her about John since no one has heard from him in days, not since he left to meet up with her. They exorcise her.

Jess had expected her vessel to be dead, after the fall she took, and all. But the girl wakes up, gasping, pale, broken. She cries out like a wounded animal as Sam and Dean lower her onto the floor.

“That bitch was using me for a year,” she gasps out. “I was awake for some of it. The things she made me do…”

Jess’ spine goes cold. She takes the girl’s hand. “I’m so sorry,” she says. 

The girl goes still. Tears welling in her eyes, Jess lets go of her hand.

“You three better beat it,” Bobby says grimly. “I’ll take care of this. Go find your daddy.”

+

They leave Sam’s car at Bobby’s since the Impala is faster and Dean drives it like a crazy person. They make it to Jefferson, Missouri, in record time.

They fight off two demons and get John out of the apartment building he was being held in. Sam almost gets taken down by one of the demons… and Dean shoots it dead, taking its vessel along with it. Jess watches in horror as the body crumbles to the floor.

“Sammy, we gotta get outta here,” Dean’s frantic voice cuts through. He yanks his brother up. “Jess, come on.”

She watches the boys haul their father up and drag him out. Feet uncertain, heartbeat throbbing in her forehead, Jess follows.

They get John to the safehouse. When he comes to, he says he’s proud of Dean, and Dean immediately shoves his way between Sam and Jess and John, knowing without a doubt that his father would not say that-- that he’s possessed. Sure enough, John’s dark eyes flicker into the rotten, putrid yellow color of the demon they’ve been hunting all this time.

Dean fights back tears, hesitating, unable to shoot his father even if there is a demon inside.

And the demon practically turns Dean’s chest inside out before it gets away.

+

Jess sits in the back seat of the Impala, cheek against the window, a slumped over Dean Winchester in the seat next to her as Sam drives the four of them to the hospital.

“I’m surprised at you, Sammy. You should have shot me back there,” John pipes up after a few minutes of driving.

“Don’t call me Sammy.”

“You’ve always been Sammy.”

“Dean’s the only one who gets to call me that.”

Jess tunes them out. She can hardly breathe.

(that was our last chance. that was the end of the fucking road. my parents… this was all for nothing. i wasted a year of my life chasing this thing and i didn’t even kill it.)

(because john fucking winchester’s sons still love him, even after everything he has done to them, i missed my chance to kill that fucking demon.)

She feels sick. If there was any food in her stomach (which there isn’t-- they haven’t stopped to eat in hours) she would be worried about throwing up. But instead she just aches, dully, exhausted. 

(i’m sorry, mom and dad. i’m so sorry.)

Her dry, stinging eyes overflow with tears, and she chokes back a sob. 

(they’re dead because of me and i couldn’t even step in and kill the demon who did it. i let the winchesters’ stupid fucking family drama get in the way of what i needed to do. i failed and i ruined my life in the process.)

She covers her face with clawing, cold hands, and she tries to breathe through the pent-up sobs and the blocked airway. She can smell the rust of Dean Winchester’s blood next to her.

“Look, we’ve still got the Colt, alright?” Sam’s uneven, uncertain voice comes from the driver’s seat. “We still have the one bullet left. We just have to start over.”

Jessica’s chest tightens harder, and her mind goes stale with regret and frustration and sorrow. These things grow heavier, swelling, pounding into her head. And then a semi truck pounds into her head, too, and everything goes dark.


	3. first half of season two

SEASON TWO.

Beep.

(i’m so cold)

Beep.

(where even am i, why is it so hard to open my eyes)

Beep.

A few unfamiliar voices are talking, their tones flat and clinical, their words a jumbled blur of loose sounds. Maybe not even in English. Or Spanish, which Jess is nearly fluent in. Some other language. Russian. Probably Russian.

Beep.

It’s like she doesn’t have a body, for a moment. Like how it feels when you’re dreaming but you aren’t in the dream. Bearing witness. 

Beep.

(no. i have-- i can move my fingers.)

“Jess?”

Sam’s voice.

It’s enough to pull her up, to force her eyes open, and she realizes the people in the room are not in fact speaking Russian. Everything renders into place slowly. A small hospital room with greying walls and a cramped window, a man in scrubs, a woman in a lab coat, another woman in scrubs. Jess realizes she’s in a hospital bed, hooked up to some things-- that’s where the beeps are coming from. And then she sees Sam, leaning over her, a little cut across the bridge of his nose, a small gash on his chin. 

She tries to reach her hand toward him. Opens her mouth to speak, but her throat is unbelievable dry. She blinks. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says, that gentle sort of frantic that belongs only to him. 

“She’s awake?” One of the doctors or nurses asks.

“Sam,” she manages to say, a halted whisper.

(why is it so cold in here)

She wants nothing more than for the three strangers to leave.

“Good morning, Miss Moore,” the woman in the lab coat says blandly, looking down at Jess.

“What’s going on?” She asks, almost a croak. Sam holds a chunky plastic cup in front of her, a straw poking out of it, which he fumbles to her lips.

“Drink some water.”

She does as he says.

“You were in a nasty car accident,” the doctor suggests. “You sustained a head injury. It was bad enough that we had to put you in a medically induced coma for 48 hours. But you’re showing signs of improvement.”

“It’s really cold in here,” she mumbles, her eyes flickering shut again. 

She feels Sam’s hand settle on her arm, warm like it always is. 

“Do you have any questions?” The doctor asks.

“What?”

The three of them say some more things Jess barely understands. Then, finally, they leave her alone with Sam. He has this look on his face that she just hates. 

(i just want him to lay down with me and hold me so i’ll stop being so fucking cold.)

“Sam?” She says once they’re alone for a few minutes.

“Yeah?”

“Uh… we were in the Impala, right?”

“Yeah. That’s right.”

“Is Dean okay?”

(she doesn’t give a single shit about john. can’t even muster enough energy to ask about him out of politeness.)

“He’s in a coma,” Sam answers with a sigh, stroking Jess’ cheek with the pad of his thumb. “He’s not doing so good. Since he was already injured when we crashed. Hopefully he’ll wake up soon and then we’ll know the extent of the damage. I’m so glad you’re awake, babe. Having both you and my brother in comas… it’s been a really rough couple of days.”

A trembling frown forms at her lips. (dean will be okay. he has to.)

“My dad’s fine,” Sam adds. “He’s being treated for a few minor injuries.”

(right. who cares.)

(don’t be a bitch, jessica, she scolds herself silently.)

“Good. How did the crash even happen?”

“A semi truck came out of nowhere,” he explains, shaking his head. “It just plowed right into us. It got Dean and my dad’s side of the car worse. You only got hurt because your head slammed against the window.”

“Oh. Yeah. Did you get hurt at all?” She asks.

He shakes his head. “Just banged up a little bit. Nothing broken.”

She nods a little bit, beginning to shiver.

“I’m going to get you another blanket,” he says, pressing a kiss to her cheek and standing up. “Hang in there.”

+

The next few days are a blur. She nods off frequently, and always seems to wake up to some cold-fingered nurse hovering over her for another of the endless tests. Sam comes in and out, giving her updates on Dean when he has them. Sometimes, when Jess wakes up, still bleary, she swears she can see Dean standing in the doorway for a second. He has a long, jagged rip in his forehead, and bruising on his cheekbone. She always tries to talk to him, figuring he must’ve woken up and come to see her, but he always vanishes.

She decides not to mention these sightings to Sam.

By some series of events she’s still too blurry to comprehend, Dean wakes up okay, and John collapses in his older son’s hospital room, dying of sudden heart failure. Sam deliriously gives her a play by play of how it happened from his perspective, but she can’t put any sense to it. 

(i’ll probably understand in a few days when my head clears up and i stop being so stupid.)

From the hospital, the three of them check into a motel room for a night or two, and then eventually they end up at Bobby Singer’s house in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Dean’s car is destroyed, completely crunched up, but Sam had insisted Bobby tow it back to his scrapyard so Dean can fix it.

She can still barely think straight. Dean is hardly talking. She isn’t exactly sure who was driving them from Jefferson to Sioux Falls or how it happened. Just that eventually, she’s sitting in Bobby’s living room with him, waiting for the boys to come back from burning their father’s body.

+

“How’s Dean?” Jess asks a week later as Sam wanders into their guest room.

“Still working on the car,” Sam sighs. “I keep asking if he’s okay and he keeps swearing he is, but I know he isn’t.”

“Well, yeah.”

“I’m worried about him, babe.” Sam sits down next to her on the bed, so she closes her laptop and sets it aside. The late morning sun beams in through the slightly-open window, shining into Sam’s eyes, the color of which Jess has never been able to quite pinpoint. 

“He just needs time, Sam,” she says, taking his hand. 

“He won’t even talk to me about it.”

“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me. He’s not exactly the ‘talking about feelings’ type.”

“Yeah. I forgot how frustrating that can be,” Sam half-chuckles. “I was spoiled at Stanford ‘cause I had you and you were always willing to talk about stuff.”

“He’ll come around,” Jess reassures him, squeezing his hand. 

“I think maybe he needs a case.”

“Yeah. Maybe. Do you have leads on one?”

“Kinda,” Sam admits. “I was waiting because I didn’t want to rush your recovery, but you seem a lot better now.”

“I’m great.”

(she’s not. her head hurts almost constantly and she’s always tired and she still has brain fog and loud noises and bright lights make her want to die. but it’s getting better every day, at least, and she feels close enough to her normal self to handle a case.)

“You sure you’re ready to get out there?”

“Yeah. And we should get out of Bobby’s hair.”

“I was going through my dad’s phones, you know, from the glove box in his truck,” Sam says. “I found this one with a message from some woman named Ellen Harvelle. She said she could help, and for my dad to stop being stubborn. It’s from four months ago.”

“Okay,” Jess nods. “You know her?”

“I’ve never heard the name before. But I managed to trace the number to a roadhouse in Nebraska. It’s only about four hours southwest of here.”

“Great. Let’s go.”

+

“I hate your fuckin’ car, Sammy,” Dean grumbles from the backseat of Sam’s blue ‘83 Chevy Cavelier. “It barely fuckin’ works.”

“Hey, come on, I bought it on thirteen hundred dollars of work study money. It’s the best car I could find in my budget.” Sam takes one hand off the wheel and pats the car’s dashboard. “It’s no ‘67 Impala but it’s decent.”

(and it’s the first place we had sex, jess adds silently, but she figures she shouldn’t mention that-- anyway, dean IS sitting in the backseat, which is exactly where the deed went down four-ish years ago, right after sam got the car. it was both of their first time, and it was clumsy, and sam was really too tall for it to work right-- but it’s still a good memory, and it makes her smile a tiny bit.)

“That noise I’m hearing from the engine is not kosher, brother. You oughta let me take a look once I have my baby running smooth again.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Anyway. Tell me what the deal is here, again?” Dean asks, leaning forward, clearly not wearing a seatbelt.

(are you seriously not wearing a seatbelt right after we almost all died in a car accident?)

“Yeah, so it’s a roadhouse in Nebraska, run by someone who is evidently a friend of Dad’s. Ellen Harvelle. She called saying she could help four months ago, so I figure she might know something about the demon.”

“Right. Well, here’s fuckin’ hoping.” Dean leans back again. “You got any decent music in this thing?”

“No, he doesn’t,” Jess answers for him. She fishes out the one CD she’d picked up when she was in California-- her favorite album, Greenday’s American Idiot-- and shows it to Dean. “This is the only thing worth playing in this car.”

“Ugh, first Dean, now you too, Jess? I thought you were supposed to be on my team. Why can’t you guys accept my music taste?” Sam complains.

“Because your music taste includes Celine Dion.”

To Jess’ surprise, Dean lets out a loud laugh at her dig. She glances at his reflection in the rearview mirror as a knee-jerk reaction, and catches sight of an eye-crinkling, face-brightening, actually genuine smile. She smiles a little bit too.

“Pop in that Greenday,” Dean says once the laughter wears down. “I’ve never listened to it before but hey, if you hate Celine Dion, your music taste might be worth checking into, Jess.”

+

When Sam pulls into a parking spot in front of the building labelled Harvelle’s Roadhouse, in the middle of nowhere, it really doesn’t look like much. Greying wooden slats cover its facade, with small curtained windows and a neon OPEN sign that looks like it’s seen better days, like maybe in the 1980s. Three cars dot its meager, faded parking lot, and miles of empty stretch hard down both sides of the street beyond it. In the distance, the only thing Jess can see is a light-up Arby’s sign.

“Place looks like a dump,” Dean comments. 

“Yeah, well, it’s in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska,” Sam says, at the same time as Jess asks, “since when do you have standards?”

“She expecting us?” Dean asks Sam, ignoring Jess’ dig.

Sam shakes his head. 

“Huh. Okay. Well.” Dean slams the Chevy Caveleir’s door shut and stretches his legs.

Sam catches Jess’ hand in his as they follow Dean toward the Roadhouse’s entrance. The place is mostly empty when they step inside, save for a man passed out underneath the pool table on the far left. The rest of the room is taken up by tables, a couple arcade games, and a square bar. The place is poorly lit and it smells like beer.

“Can I help you three?” A middle-aged woman’s voice with a bit of a drawl on it asks. 

Jess turns toward its source: a woman in a flannel shirt, coming out from one of the back rooms and taking up position behind the bar. 

“Hi,” Sam says, a little too eager, half-yanking Jess up to the counter. “I’m Sam. This is my girlfriend Jess, and my brother Dean.”

The woman frowns. “Sam and Dean Winchester?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Sam says with a few nods. 

“You’re John’s boys.”

“You know him?” Dean asks, coming up on Jess’ other side. He shoves the sleeves of his henley up, and she catches a little splotch of color just underneath; a tattoo she’s never noticed before on his inner forearm.

“Friend of mine,” Ellen confirms. “How’s he doing?”

Jess feels both the boys pale next to her. She squeezes Sam’s hand, wondering if she should say it so they don’t have to, but then Dean speaks up.

“Our father died recently,” he says, pushing his voice lower, pulling the vowel sound on ‘died’ in a weird, elastic direction, almost copying Ellen’s southwest accent.

“I’m really sorry to hear that,” she says quietly.

“Thanks,” Sam says. “Uh, you called him… said you could help with something? What were you talking about?”

“The demon, of course,” Ellen says like it’s obvious. “I heard he was closing in on it.”

“What, was there an article in the Demon Hunters Quarterly that I missed? I mean, who, who are you? How do you know about all this?” Dean asks.

“Lots of hunters pass through this place,” she says. “Including your dad, back in the day. He used to be like family.”

“You said you could help,” Jess says. “What did you mean by that? We could use all the help we can get.”

“Well, I couldn’t really help,” Ellen corrects. “But Ash can.” She gestures toward the man napping under the pool table. “Ash! Wake up!”

He wakes up abruptly, and Jess takes a better look at him: he looks around her and the boys’ ages, with a brown mullet, multiple earrings, and a plaid shirt with the sleeves ripped off.

“What? Closin’ time?” He asks, scrambling to his feet.

“That’s Ash?” Sam asks, an eyebrow quirking.

“Yeah. He’s a genius.”

“This Lynyrd Skynyrd roadie?”

Ash laughs a little at Dean’s quip. “I like you.”

A young blonde woman wanders out of a backroom just then, giving Jess and the boys uneasy onceovers.

“Jo, come here a minute,” Ellen instructs. The girl comes over, joining her behind the bar. “This is my daughter Johanna. Jo, Sam and Dean Winchester, and uh-- what was your name, sweetheart?”

“Jessica,” Jess offers.

“Pleasure,” Jo says. “Give Ash a chance, okay? If anyone can help you two, he can.”

“Oh, so everyone knows our damn business?” Dean huffs.

“Just give him the folder, Dean.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dean does as his brother says, though, heading out to the car to grab it.

Ash takes one look at it and immediately spews a bunch of words Jess barely understands. “These are omens, I guess. You track ‘em, you can track the demon. Damn. I never seen anyone hunt a demon like this. Your dad’s somethin’ else.”

Dean half shrugs, rubbing at his mouth.

“So you can track it?” Sam asks.

“Yeah, give me fifty-one hours,” Ash says, stuffing the papers back into the folder, closing it up.

“Hey, man?” Dean calls after him.

“Yeah.”

“I dig the haircut.”

Jess stifles a laugh with her hand, turning in toward Sam so Dean and Ash won’t notice.

“Guess we got fifty-one hours to kill,” Dean concludes, turning back toward the bar on his stool. “What’re we gonna do?”

“Well, I have somethin’ that might eat up the time nicely,” Ellen pipes up.

“Yeah?” Jess asks, leaning forward.

(the more i work, she thinks, the less i have to think about how badly i failed my parents.)

(sometimes she hates herself for thinking in such concrete words. sam had just commented this morning on how her ability to acknowledge feelings is a blessing, but right now it feels like a curse.)

(if she weren’t still concussed she would want a drink.)

“Yeah, just a couple hours from here.” Ellen reaches under the bar for a few pieces of paper, and sets them in front of Jess and the boys. Newspaper clippings. “Couple murdered, child left alive. I look through nearby papers when business is slow, since I got a lot of friends comin’ through here looking for cases to work.”

“We can definitely check this out,” Sam says with a nod. “Thanks.”

“Yeah. Great. We’ll leave right now,” Dean agrees.

The three of them go to stand up from their bar stools. 

The world goes hard and blank.

“Jess? Jess, babe, are you okay?” Sam’s voice cuts through.

She’s in his arms, slumped. He must have haphazardly caught her. The suddenness of it all fogs up her mind, and she blinks, holding onto his arm for stability as she straightens up. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Honey, what’s going on with you?” Ellen asks.

“I’m fine,” Jess repeats.

“We were in a car accident recently. She hit her head pretty bad,” Sam explains, sliding an arm around her shoulders like he doesn’t trust her to stand on her own. “She’s still recovering.”

“Maybe you oughta stay behind, blondie,” Dean pipes up. “Can’t have you fainting on the job.”

“I’m not going to faint,” Jess insists, pushing away from Sam, though honestly she’s still dizzy. 

“You just did.”

“I didn’t faint. I just tripped.”

“No, honey, you were out like a light for at least ten seconds,” Ellen comments. 

“Jess, you have to give yourself time to heal before you get out there again,” Sam says gently. 

“Why don’t you stay here?” Ellen says. “We got a couple rooms in the back, we rent ‘em out or have friends stay all the time.”

“I don’t--”

Jess’ mind hasn’t settled. She can’t even come up with the words she means. Her face burns in embarrassment. 

(this is my fucking fight, sam, she wants to yell at him. let me fight it. i’m a big girl. i can make the call if i’m ready or not.)

“Please?” Sam begs her, going full-on puppy dog eyes.

(god fucking dammit.)

“Fine,” she huffs. “You guys better get back here quick.”

“Scout’s honor,” Dean says boredly. “Come on, Sammy. Let’s go check out that carnival.”

+

The room is cleaner and more comfortable than Jess would have expected, based on the grungey state of the rest of the place-- it features a double bed, neatly made with a blue quilt and white sheets, a small dresser, a wicker bench with a green cushion, and a small attached bathroom. By the looks of the shower she’ll have to hunch over to wash her hair, but that’s no big deal.

She’s still pissed off about being benched, though. Again.

(they think they can just tell me what to do. all the time. is it because i’m a girl? because dean will die if he’s not in charge? because they think i still don’t know how to hunt even after a year of keeping up with them?)

She shakes her head, scrubbing her hands over her eyes. She’d put on mascara, and forgotten, and now it lays in ugly black smudges that make her look like an angry teenager or a raccoon or something.

She goes to wash her face. Not like she usually wears makeup, these days, anyway.

There’s a knock at the door a few minutes later. “Jessica? It’s Ellen.”

Jess goes to open it, offering the woman a smile. “Hi,” she says. “Thanks for letting me stay.”

“Oh, of course, we’re happy to. I just wanted to check on you. See if you felt okay or needed anything.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” she confirms quickly. “Sam is just really over-protective of me. But I’m okay. I just got a little bit dizzy there.”

“Well, maybe you oughta eat something,” Ellen suggests. “Come on back to the kitchen with me, why don’t you. I gotta make Ash some brain food if he’s gonna read through John Winchester’s deranged ramblings, anyway.”

“Oh, yeah, okay.”

Jess follows her out, letting the door to her room fall shut on the way. “Hey, Ellen?” she asks as they make their way to the Roadhouse’s small back kitchen.

“Mhm?”

“Um, how did you know John?”

“Met him a little over twenty years ago when he came through here. He was with a mutual friend of ours, fella named Bobby Singer.”

“I know Bobby.”

“Good guy. Anyway, Bobby introduced us. John would come stay here every once in a while to talk to other hunters. He’s been trying to track down that demon since before I met him.” Ellen sighs. “Too bad he had to die before catching it. Go ahead and sit down and have some water. There’s our menu, mostly sandwiches, let me know what you want.”

“Oh-- uh, whatever you’re already making Ash is fine,” she says.

Ellen laughs. “I wouldn’t say that if I were you, sweetie. Ash is a man of bizarre taste. You got a thing for sour kraut, extra pickles, hot sauce, extra mayo, and crushed-up vinegar chips on your BLT?”

She can’t help but laugh, wrinkling her nose up at the bizarre list of toppings. “Is he trying to burn his tongue off?”

“Says the burn and the sour helps him concentrate.”

“God. Ha. Uh, but a regular BLT without… all that weird stuff… or any mayo, that would be great.”

“Coming right up.” Ellen opens the fridge and rifles through it, pulling out some of the ingredients before heading to turn the stove on.

“The demon John was hunting,” Jess says as Ellen starts laying bacon on the frying pan. “it killed both of my parents about a year ago. And it tried to kill me. Would’ve succeeded, if Sam hadn’t gotten home at the exact right second.”

“Christ almighty,” Ellen sighs. “You poor thing. That’s terrible.”

“So this is personal for me, you know?”

“Of course. Can I just give you one quick word of advice, sweetie? Woman to woman?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Ellen pauses, watching the gas flame under the frying pan. She sighs before turning to face Jess. “You just be careful with the Winchester boys, alright?”

“Be… careful with them? What do you mean? I thought you just met them.”

“I knew their daddy better than they might think. I’ll tell you one thing, they ain’t good luck. Fooling around with a Winchester boy, I wouldn’t call that a great idea.”

Jess almost feels angry for a second, angry that someone would say these things about the Winchester boys-- even though she’s also currently angry at the Winchester boys. She feels protective over them. Both of them, even Dean, somehow.

(i’m not fooling around. why does everyone think they know everything about my life better than me? anyway sam and dean aren’t anything like their father.)

“Sam is a real sweetheart,” she settles for saying after a moment’s hesitation. “He’s the nicest guy, Ellen. Really. Dean has his… you know, moments, but I’ve known Sam since we were teenagers and he would never do anything to hurt me.”

“Just take care of yourself, alright?”

She nods. “Yeah, okay.”

“And revenge… it ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. It can drive a person insane. Just look at John Winchester.”

(i’m different.)

“I hear you,” she says. “Uh, is there anything I can do to help?”

“No, you just sit there, I’ve got it covered.”

+

The boys return within three days, and Ash explains his findings-- he has a whole system set up, so any move the demon makes, he’ll catch it and alert them immediately. They all have a few beers together-- Jess, the boys, Ellen, Jo, and Ash-- before heading out the next morning, back to Bobby’s place so Dean can finish rebuilding his car.

“That thing was crushed, I don’t know why he’s bothering,” Jess comments as the door shuts behind Dean.

“That car, it means everything to him. Only thing he always had, I guess.” Sam shrugs. “And he sort of has a way with it. I bet it’ll be running inside a week.”

“He’s a damn fool, but you gotta respect his dedication,” Bobby adds.

A few hours later, she goes outside to let him know Bobby ordered pizza for dinner, and she finds him sitting on the ground behind the car, knees to his chest, crying into his hands. He clearly doesn’t notice her, though she’s only fifteen feet away or so.

Jess stands there, stiff, for a second. Then, she figures it’s best to leave him alone and let him mourn his father in peace.

She catches another glimpse of the tattoo she’d noticed the other day, thanks to the fact that Dean is wearing a tee shirt instead of long sleeves for once. It’s a thorny rose with the initials MW underneath it, faded, like it’s been sitting on his skin for years.

+

Sam is right-- within a week, Dean has the Impala back in mint condition. Sam talks Jess into letting Dean drive to their next case in Montana, since he’s so thrilled about the car being fixed, and Sam wants to encourage the good mood.

(at least they’re even letting me come, she muses silently from the back seat.)

After the case in Montana, they drive back through Sioux Falls to pick up Sam’s car from Bobby’s, and then they head to Illinois for another case. She likes hunting, and she’s getting good at it, and it’s heavily preferable over sitting around doing nothing-- but she’s also just waiting impatiently for Ash to call with a lead on the yellow-eyed demon.

The case in Illinois is an undead thing. Zombies, Jess figures, is what some people would call them.

“What’s dead should stay dead,” Dean says as he kills it. Later, she overhears the boys talking outside their motel rooms. Hears tears in Dean’s voice as he tells Sam he knows he was dead back in the hospital in Missouri. That he knows John somehow traded places with him.

(he might as well do one fucking thing to help his kids out before he dies, jess thinks angrily, turning over in the bed and pretending to be asleep so sam won’t suspect anything when he eventually comes back into their room.)

(she tells herself not to think so poorly of the man now that he’s dead, but it’s hard. he did handcuff her to a couch and abuse his kids for their entire lives, and all. dean winchester would probably be a lot less weird if not for his father.)

The next day before they leave Illinois, Dean disappears for a few hours. He shows back up at the hotel with a fresh tattoo, skin red around it, of a black pistol with the letters JW underneath it-- a memorial tattoo of his father's favorite gun. He basically has to take his shirt off to show it to Sam and Jess.

(why would you even get a tattoo on your shoulder blade where you will never be able to see it? she wonders as he clumsily pulls his shirt back down.)

+

“Jess? Babe, wake up.”

Since the accident, waking up has been rough. She isn’t the morning person she once was. “Huh?” she mumbles, still half asleep.

Sam’s hand brushes against her cheek. “We gotta move.”

“Yeah. Mmkay.” She pulls air into her lungs, forcing her eyes open, and yawns into her hands as she sits up. “What’s going on, Sam?”

“I just had a premonition. It’s gotta have something to do with the demon. We gotta get to the Roadhouse.”

+

They make the drive back to Nebraska, and Sam unloads all the details about his premonition onto Ash. It leads them to Guthrie, Oklahoma, on a pair of tips: a match for the bus logo Sam had seen in his dream, and a house fire in 1983 where a mother had died in her six month old baby’s nursery. 

When they leave the Roadhouse, though, Sam’s car won’t start.

“Dammit,” he whines, turning the key again. “Come on.”

“Car troubles, Sammy?”

“You’d love that, wouldn’t you, Dean?” Sam snarks without bothering to look at his brother out the window. Jess laughs a little bit.

“Let’s just leave it here, okay? We gotta get moving. We can drag it back to Bobby’s and I’ll get it fixed up after the case.”

Sam huffs a little. “Fine.”

They make it to Oklahoma in record time, thanks to Dean’s maniacal driving habits. Then, somehow Jess ends up spying on the boy whose house had burnt down in 1983 with Dean while Sam follows the man who had died in his premonition. 

It’s always kind of weird being alone with Dean. They haven’t spent much time together without Sam at all over the past year, and when they have, they always seem to get into a fight.

(i’m not going to start one if he doesn’t right now, though, jess thinks cooly, glancing over at her boyfriend’s brother from the passenger seat of his car.)

“You never did tell me how my brother convinced you to date him,” Dean comments after several minutes of chunky quiet.

“Yeah, uh, we had statistics together at Stanford, second semester of freshman year. He sat next to me on the first day and we ended up doing a project together. While we were working on it, he asked me on a date. It was cute. He could barely get the words out.” She smiles a little. “We hit it off right away.”

“Well, that’s pretty boring.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, sorry it didn’t involve fifty tequila shots and hustling pool and a one night stand. That would have been more your speed.”

He laughs a little bit, but she can’t tell if it’s genuine or not-- it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Hey, believe it or not, I’m not as much of a player as you might think.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I like my sex casual and my women experienced, but it’s not like I trick ‘em or anything. I don’t string anyone along.”

“Well, that’s... good.”

“Not saying I’m a hero or nothin’. Just maybe not as much of an asshole as you might’ve thought.”

She laughs. “Noted. Dean Winchester, not a hero, just not too much of an asshole.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“I could use a caffeine boost. I’m gonna run to that coffee shop on the corner really quick. Do you want a coffee or something?”

“Yeah, I could use a coffee. Just black. Thanks.”

“No problem.” She reaches for the door handle and steps into the fresh air, taking her Razr out of her pocket to take a quick glance at her emails. 

She used to get messages here and there from Stanford friends. But somewhere over the past year, between her parents’ sudden death and her solo trip to Sacramento, they stopped bothering. She figures she can’t blame them. It’s not like she ever emailed them back.

Her aunt Sandra still sends her regular messages, though. She replies to those, sometimes, with a line or two about doing okay and travelling around with Sam and hanging out at her parents’ Lakehouse. Since it’s been a couple months, she figures she should probably send Sandra a response now. So as she waits in line at the café, she types one out really quick.

_Hey Aunt Sandra. I’m doing well. Sam and I are still road tripping. We’re staying with some family friends of his in Nebraska, working at their bar for a little while before we hit the road again. Glad you two are doing well. Love, Jessica._

She makes a face as she sends it, hoping her aunt won’t sense the lie. Not that Jess owes explanations to the woman. She’s just kind of the only family member left to worry.

Once Jess has the two coffees, she heads back outside and toward the Impala-- but it’s gone. For a second, she frowns, thinking Dean must have ditched her to follow Andrew. But then she sees him standing like an idiot on the side of the street with a confused look wiped over his freckled face.

“Dean, what the hell, where’s your car?” She asks once she catches up to him. She hands him his coffee; he just sort of looks at it.

“I dunno. Andrew came up to the window and asked me for it and I just sort of gave it to him.”

“What?”

“Yeah, he full on Obi-Wan’d me.”

“So he asked you if he could have your car, and you just gave it to him,” Jess recounts, taking a sip of her coffee. “Are you in love with him or something?”

Dean almost drops his cup. “In love with-- ha! No! I have a crush on Ash, not Andy!” His face goes as white as a cheaply painted apartment as soon as the words are out of his mouth.

(ash? did he seriously say he just has a crush on ash? did this muscle car overly masculine crew cut beer chugging macho man with a gun collection just say ‘crush’?)

“You have a crush on Ash?” Jess asks, her jaw fully dropping. “Ash with the… mullet? Roadhouse Ash?”

“Oh my God,” Dean groans, covering his face with his free hand. “Fuck me.”

“Why did you tell me that?”

“It just sort of came out. I panicked. Nobody ever assumes I’m into guys but when you said… fuck me.”

“Oh my God, Dean. I was just joking.”

“Don’t breathe a word of this to Sam. You gotta swear.”

“I won’t tell Sam, I promise,” she says, half laughing. “Dean, it’s fine if you’re gay.”

He groans again, louder. “I’m not gay, okay? I just got done telling you I like sleeping with women. I just like… guys too. I mean, I probably would. I’ve never really had the chance to-- can we not talk about this?” He rubs his hand over his face and then through his short hair before taking a swig of coffee so big it has to burn his tongue.

“I’d prefer it,” she agrees, laughing a little more. “Come on. Let’s go find your damn car.”

+

When they find Dean’s car half an hour later, the keys are sitting on the driver’s seat, and it’s unlocked.

“I’m so sorry, baby, I’ll never leave you again,” Dean gushes, setting his hands on the hood like it’s a precious heirloom.

(dude is kinda weird about that car.)

“If that Andy guy has mind control powers, we need to be really careful,” Jess says as Dean has his moment with the Impala. “Maybe we should try to avoid dealing with him directly.”

“He tries to take my car again, he’s toast,” Dean says, tone suggesting it’s an agreement. “C’mon, let’s go pick up Sammy.”

+

The case moves quickly from there on out. It’s messy and at times confusing, but by the end of it, they have more intel on the yellow eyed demon: it gave an unknown amount of six month old babies some sort of power in 1983, and it didn’t kill all the mothers-- only the ones who got in the way. And now that the affected babies are twenty-three-year-old adults, the demon is pushing them. Which also gives Jess an answer as to why it tried to kill her: to push Sam.

(and when it failed, it figured it might as well add me to its army. so it killed my parents to push me.)

The thought makes her ears go numb, her hands go cold. She shivers.

“You okay, babe?” Sam asks from their motel room’s couch.

“Yeah. I’m fine.” She offers a smile. “I think I’m going to get some fresh air.”

“Okay.”

She grabs a jacket and heads outside. Their motel is on the edge of town, near an empty grassy area, so she starts wandering it. Before, she might have been nervous about wandering a rural field at night, but she isn’t really afraid of the dark anymore. 

(i haven’t had a premonition since the accident.)

She stops cold with the realization, glancing over her shoulder for no real reason.

(when i hit my head, did it… shake loose whatever the demon put in there? i don’t get it.)

Not that she wants to be a freak. But sometimes they come in handy. 

But then again-- she had been immune to Andy and his twin brother’s powers of manipulation, just like Sam had. So maybe not.

“Taking a late night walk, blondie?”

She starts a little. But it’s just Dean. She turns to face him and offers half a friendly smile.

“Guess so,” she answers. “What are you doing?”

“I thought I heard something out here.”

“Like a monster something?” She asks, already looking around.

“Yeah, I think it was just the wind. You okay?”

She blinks, a little taken aback by the question, and turns to face him again. The dead grass shuffles a little in the breeze. “Yeah, I’m good. I don’t think there’s anything out here.”

He nods a few times. “Super.”

(he wants to say something else.)

(wait, was that… do i have intuition again? or was that just a normal thought?)

“Uh… Jess,” he begins, kicking at a rock on the ground.

“Yeah?”

“Look, you know I… didn’t mean to say that thing to you earlier. About Ash. It was an accident, and I really… don’t want you to say anything about it to my brother.”

He sounds sheepish. Embarrassed. His usual macho man thing is clearly taking a powder.

“Dean, don’t worry, I’m not going to,” she reassures him. “I promise. It’s not my business or Sam’s anyway.”

“Right,” he says, shoulders relaxing a little. He rubs at his mouth. “Thanks. I appreciate it. If you, uh--” he clears his throat. “You can trust me, too, you know. I got your back.”

“Thanks.”

He nods a few times, backing away. She watches him for a moment. Watches the heeled boots, the I-don’t-give-a-shit pop of the back of his jacket collar, the hard set of his mouth and his eyes. Remembers him curled up next to his car, sweaty and smudged with black grease from working on it, crying like a baby about his father’s death. She thinks of whatever’s lurking in Cicero, Indiana. His mother’s faded initials on his arm, his father’s, crisp and fresh, hidden on his back so he won’t be able to see it on himself. The accidental crush confession on the side of the road. The little four-year-old kid who carried his baby brother out of their burning house.

(everything he is, she thinks, is buried under something else.)

“Hey, Dean, you know, you can talk about stuff if you ever want to,” she says clumsily. “To me or, you know, to Sam. You don’t have to… do this whole thing all the time.”

He half-laughs, half-scoffs. “I’ve told you before, blondie, I ain’t doin’ a thing.”

He walks away.

+

The three of them stop back at the Roadhouse for a night, and after some pressing on Ellen’s part, they recount what had happened in Oklahoma-- the things they learned about the yellow eyed demon and its army. 

They head back to Sioux Falls in the morning, Sam’s car trailing pathetically behind the Impala, attached by some chain Ash had laying around. 

“Where you three been?” Bobby asks as he brings out a six pack of beer from the fridge after welcoming them inside.

“Harvelle’s Roadhouse in Nebraska,” Sam answers.

“Yeah, Ellen Harvelle said you’re a friend,” Dean adds.

Bobby pauses, the top half-off his beer. He seems to think about it for a second before finishing the job. “Yeah, I know Ellen. Known her a long time.” Then, he turns to face Jess.

“Jessica, would you mind giving me just a minute alone with the boys?” He asks. “I’m sure Sam’ll tell you everything anyway but I think they should hear it alone first.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” she says. “Uh, I’ll just-- I’ll pick up something for dinner from the store down the street.”

Bobby offers her a sort of bashful, but kind smile of thanks.

“Bobby…” Sam has discomfort written on his face.

“It’s okay, Sam, I’ll be right back,” she says, touching his shoulder as she leaves.

“See if they have pie,” Dean calls after her.

She half-chuckles as she leaves, pulling her purse onto her shoulder.

(something about the harvelles, she muses as she starts down the street. something the boys don’t know.)

(it has to do with their father.)

(okay, i guess the intuition is back.)

The store is sparsely- populated, both by patrons and by variety of product. But she easily tracks down basic lasagne ingredients, figuring that’s something easy to make and a general crowd pleaser, and even finds an apple pie in the bakery section.

She sets the items on the counter, moving quickly, eager to get back to Bobby’s so Sam can tell her whatever the gossip about the Harvelles is. She pays in a few crumbled bills leftover from her last babysitting job.

(i need to find something to do for money soon, she notes as she takes the grocery bags. either that or i need to start hustling pool like dean.)

She almost laughs at the thought. She hates lying and she definitely does not have the finesse to effectively hustle pool. But if you can find a subdivision family with two or three little kids who want to stay out for a good amount of time, you can usually get at least a hundred dollars out of it.

When she gets back to Bobby’s, Dean is already outside in the scrap yard, poking through the engine of Sam’s car. She lets herself in through the back door.

“I got stuff to make lasagne,” she mentions once she makes it into the kitchen.

“Sounds great,” Bobby says with a nod, setting his beer down on the counter. “Let me know if you need a sous chef.”

“Ha. Great. Thanks.” She puts the cheese in the fridge, leaving everything else out on the counter. “I’ll get started on that soon. Uh, where’s Sam?”

“Upstairs in the guest room,” Bobby answers. “Think I kinda upset the poor kid.”

She frowns a little, heading for the stairs without responding.

Bobby’s house is the kind of place her mother would have had a litany of snide comments about. The furniture is mismatched, there are books everywhere, all the light bulbs are yellow-- but Jess kind of likes it. It’s comfortable. Homey. Maybe her standards are low since she’s been on the road for so long, but when she hears in her head the comments her mother would make if she were here, they just kind of annoy her.

“Sam?” She calls once she makes it to the top of the stairs. The door to the room the two of them had stayed in last time is slightly ajar. Cautiously, she nudges it in.

He’s sitting on the side of the bed, a weird look on his face, his phone in his hands.

“Hey,” she says. “Are you okay?”

He gives a short, slow nod. “Yeah.”

“I’m going to make lasagne for dinner.”

“Nice.”

She sort of watches him for a second, waiting to see if he’ll say anything else. He does after a moment.

“Jo Harvelle is my half sister.”

Jess blinks. Runs the numbers. She doesn’t know how old Jo is, exactly, but the girl looked around her and Sam’s age. “What? How?”

“My dad and Ellen were a thing way back when. Apparently he stayed with her for a month while Dean and me were staying with Pastor Jim. And they, uh--” Sam half-scoffs, a weird huff of air accompanied by an absolutely flat face, something Jess has never seen anyone else do. “He’s Jo’s father.”

“That’s… really weird,” Jess says slowly, coming to sit down next to her boyfriend. “How do you feel about it?”

“Fucking frustrated, I guess, ‘cause my dad was never around for us-- always passing us around to Jim or Bobby or leaving us in a motel on our own-- and I always thought it was because he was so dedicated to hunting, but I guess he had enough free time to have another kid. And he never bothered to tell us.”

“Did he know Jo was his daughter?”

“Yeah. From day one.” Sam sighs, shaking his head. “Bobby’s known all along, too. But my dad made Bobby promise not to tell us. Bobby only told us now ‘cause our dad is dead and we happened to meet Jo and Ellen, and he figured we deserved to know.”

“Right.”

“Ellen married a guy called Bill Harvelle when Jo was still in diapers. Apparently Jo thinks Bill is her father.”

“So Ellen and John lied to everyone.”

“I don’t blame Ellen,” Sam says with a shrug. “Not like my dad was around, as far as I can tell, and that Bill guy was probably a better dad.”

Jess glances toward the window, through which she can almost see Dean working on the Chevy Cavalier. “How did your brother take it?”

“He didn’t really react. Just kind of downed a beer, asked for some whiskey, and went outside to work on my car. That’s how he deals with shit, I guess. Breaking stuff or building stuff.”

(someday i’m going to get dean drunk and make him talk about his stupid feelings.)

“Yeah,” she says, distracted. “Are you… I mean, are you glad Bobby told you?”

“I guess.”

“How old is Jo, anyway?”

“Bobby said she’s around two years younger than me. So my dad really didn’t wait all that long after my mom’s death to move on, I guess.”

“It doesn’t sound like him and Ellen were in a long term emotional relationship,” Jess points out.

Sam shrugs. “Whatever. Look, I’m starving, let’s go make that lasagne, okay?”

+

It takes Dean a few days to fix up Sam’s car. Jess snags a couple babysitting jobs in the meantime-- ones that don’t even come with spine-chilling premonitions about predatory neighbors, or anything.

Once Sam’s car is back in shape, the three of them thank Bobby for his hospitality (again) and head to a ghost case in Wisconsin involving a bunch of creepy dolls. From there, it’s onto a cursed object case in Pennsylvania. At first they think it’s a ghost, but it becomes clear that it isn’t the dead aunt’s spirit attached to her old ring that’s causing problems-- it’s the ring itself.

“What if we do the cleaning service thing again?” Sam suggests as the three of them sit around Dean’s motel room with a pizza.

“No, that only worked because it was a kid. Cleaning services don’t just show up to a house without being hired by the people who live in the house.”

“We could do, uh, electric company,” Dean pipes up. “Say it’s a routine wire check.”

“That could work.”

“Yeah, but then how are you going to get into the lady’s room? She’s not just going to not notice that her sister’s ring is gone. Maybe we could do a jewelry cleaning thing.”

Dean shakes his head at Jess’ idea. “Like, door to door jewelry cleaning? Even I know that ain’t a thing.”

“You guys, I think we’re overthinking this. I think we just stake out the house until it’s empty, then pick the back door lock, go in, take the ring, get out.” Sam sets down his pizza, reaching for a napkin to wipe his hands. “All we gotta do is make sure the husband and wife both make it to work, and the kids are all in school, and we’re good.”

“They have security cameras, Sam. We saw them.”

“Maybe they’re decoys.”

Jess is about to shoot down Dean’s comment, but his phone rings, and after taking a look at the screen, he holds a finger up. Then, weirdly, he goes and shuts himself in the bathroom to answer it.

“We could break the security cameras,” Sam suggests.

“If we do that, we have to make sure no one sees the car or the license plate, and we have to get out of town ASAP. So we better be sure we’re right about the ring,” Jess replies.

She glances toward the closed bathroom door without really meaning to when she catches a snippet of Dean’s raised voice.

“What do you mean, not a big deal? That sounds like a pretty fuckin’ big deal to me.”

(a big deal, jess repeats silently. a job?)

“Jess?”

“Yeah, sorry.” She turns back to her boyfriend, who has a bit of a mischievous smirk on his face. He raises his eyebrows and then glances toward the bathroom door.

“I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop,” Jess whispers, smiling a little bit too. She covers her mouth.

“Lisa, come on, you can’t just call me with something like that and expect-- no, I understand. But it’s still a big deal.”

(lisa. i know that name. i’ve heard dean say that name before. who the hell is lisa?)

Sam’s nose scrunches up a little bit. He’s eavesdropping too. They both are, on purpose now.

“I’m just going to come, okay? I’m nearby anyway. --Yeah, I’m like an hour outside Pittsburgh. I’ll be there tonight.”

The door pushes open. Sam and Jess both start a little, going back to the pizza, eating aggressively, badly pretending that’s what they were doing all along.

Dean doesn’t even notice. As soon as he’s out, he’s shoving his stuff into his bag. “I gotta go help out a friend with something.”

“What? Dean, we’re in the middle of a case.”

He shrugs, barely tossing a glance at his brother. “You guys are gonna have to wrap this one up on your own.”

“Is everything okay?” Jess asks.

“Friend of mine thinks there’s a ghost in her neighbor’s car.”

“A ghost in her neighbor’s car?” Jess repeats.

“Car? No, I meant house. In her house. So I’m just gonna go take care of that really quick and I’ll give you guys a call after and figure out where to meet.” He slings his duffel over his shoulder. “Sammy, mind turning this in for me once you guys are done?” He fishes his key card out of his wallet and sets it on the dresser.

“Uh, yeah, dude, of course. Where are you going? Should we meet up with you when we’re done to help?”

“Bye, Jess, bye, Sammy.” Dean fumbles with the door and leaves, not bothering to answer either of his brother’s questions.

“Okay,” Sam says a beat later. “That was bizarre. He’s hiding something.”

(appendix surgery, jess’ mind suggests. emergency appendectomy. someone’s appendix burst or is infected or whatever.)

(must be that lisa person. she must be really important.)

(should i mention that?)

“Yeah, definitely.”

(he’s going to cicero.)

She thinks about the other secret of Dean’s she’s harboring. Maybe this has something to do with that.

(no, that doesn’t make any sense, he just said he was into ash. some woman in indiana getting surgery wouldn’t have anything to do with that.)

“He doesn’t usually leave the room for phone calls,” Sam points out.

Jess shrugs. “I mean, you have stuff you keep from him, right?”

“Oh, definitely.”

“It’s probably not anything to worry about. If he needs help, he’ll ask for it, right?”

Sam’s face scrunches up a little bit. “I don’t know about that.”

“We can check in with him tomorrow,” she decides. “For now let’s figure out how to get our hands on this cursed ring.”

+

It’s three days before they hear from Dean, and then it’s just a quick voicemail letting Sam know everything is fine and he’s going to stay put for a few more days. Jess and Sam are already halfway back to Nebraska to check in with Ash by then.

Sam calls back, fiddling with the glove box as Jess drives down the highway, but Dean doesn’t answer.

“Okay dude, uh, thanks for checking in, me and Jess are going to the Roadhouse. So call me if you want to meet us there, otherwise we’ll let you know if Ash has a lead or Ellen has a case. Bye.” Sam hangs up.

They make it to the Roadhouse the next day, and it turns out that while Ash doesn’t have a lead on the demon, Ellen does have a case-- one Jo is trying to talk her mother into letting her go on. 

“It’s insane that you’d rather get yourself killed on a dusty back road than go back to college, Johanna Beth. Just let Jess and Sam handle it,” Ellen insists, shaking her head.

“Yeah, Jo, I promise we’ll take care of it,” Sam pipes up.

“Where’s Dean, anyway?” Jo huffs. “I bet he’d take my side.”

“Dean is off visiting a friend,” Jess answers. “ But uh, Jo, I think this is between you and your mom, right? It’s not our business to take sides.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m almost twenty-two, Jess. I’m old enough to make my own decisions.”

(yeah, but like, your mom would be so worried, and you’re really lucky you have a mom around to worry about you, jess can’t help but think.)

“Tell us about the case, Jo,” Sam encourages. “Or, uh… why don’t you tell Jess? I kinda wanna ask you something alone, Ellen.”

Ellen’s eyebrow nudges upward. She glances between Jo and Sam. Then, she nods. “Fine. Yeah. Jo, show Jess what you have, and then you did your due diligence and made sure the case got investigated, and you can rest easy.”

“This isn’t about resting easy, Mom.”

But Ellen stands up and leads Sam to the back kitchen, effectively walking away from the conversation.

“Ugh. I’m so sick of being treated like a child,” Jo huffs, tucking a strand of her long blonde hair behind her ear.

“I hear you. But your mom’s just looking out for you,” Jess says sympathetically. “So what do you have on the case?”

“It’s an apartment building in Santa Fe. A girl around our age disappeared recently.” She hands Jess the folder she’s been holding. Jess opens it-- notes, newspaper clippings, a printed out picture of the building. “And this girl wasn't the first. Over the past eighty years six women have vanished. All from the same building, all young blondes. Only happens every decade or two so cops never eyeball the pattern. So we're either dealing with one very old serial killer, or something supernatural.”

“This is really good work, Jo,” Jess says, looking it over. “I think you’re onto something here. I mean, I’ve only been hunting for a year, but this definitely sounds like something worth looking into.”

“Thanks,” Jo says, smiling a little. “Maybe… we could work it together.”

“I think we’d make a pretty great team,” Jess says, returning the grin. “But I don’t want to get in between you and your mom’s argument. It’s really not my place. Do you have a car?”

“Yeah.”

“How bout this, then. Me and Sam will start heading that direction. You and your mom can talk about it more tonight, just the two of you. And if she comes around and agrees to let you work it, you can come meet us in Santa Fe and we’ll all work together.”

“Yeah,” Jo says again, nodding a few times. “That works for me.”

“Cool. Can I take this so I can read it in the car?”

“Go ahead. I basically have all the details memorized anyway.” Jo writes down the address of the apartment building on a bar napkin and tucks it into her jeans pocket before closing the folder and handing it back to Jess.

Sam emerges a moment later, Ellen still in the back room. “Okay, babe, let’s head out.”

“Oh,” Jess says, a little surprised. “Right now?”

“Yeah, I think it’s best.”

“What did you ask my mom back there?” Jo asks.

“Just some details about my dad,” Sam lies. “It brought up some bad memories. My dad pissed a lot of people off in his day. Ha. Anyway, uh, see you later, Jo. Tell Ash bye for us.”

“Fine.”

The two of them head back out to Sam’s Chevy Cavalier, and he gets it started and pulls out of his parking spot quickly.

“Did you tell her you and Dean know Jo’s your half sister?”

Sam nods. “Yeah. She’s not thrilled we know. She made me swear up and down not to tell Jo.”

(cool, another secret, jess thinks, her mind turning back to dean’s whole cicero appendix lisa situation. she doesn’t mind keeping the whole ash crush thing to herself, but the other stuff seems to be piling up. and of course, she still feels bad about lying to sam about sacramento.)

(i should really just tell him about that. it’s been like six months anyway. maybe he won’t even be that mad.)

(nah… i’ll tell him eventually.)

“That’s fair, I guess. Is she going to tell Jo?”

Sam sighs. “Eventually, yeah. She said she’s going to wait for the right moment so Jo doesn’t take it too badly.”

Jess nods. Jo is kind of a firecracker. She kind of doubts there’s ever going to be a ‘right moment’.

“So are we heading to Santa Fe?” She asks.

“Yeah. Mind calling Dean to let him know?”

Jess nods, fishing her Razr out of her purse to make the call. This time, finally, Dean answers.

“Hey, Jess.” She can hear the road behind his voice.

“Hi. We just left the Roadhouse,” she explains, “and Jo gave us some case info. Missing girls in an apartment building in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We’re heading over.”

“Cool. I’ll meet you there in a day or two. I’m on the road, driving through Missouri, so I might even beat you guys there.”

“Yeah. Maybe. By the way, Sam told Ellen you guys know Jo is your half sister, and Ellen wants to make sure you guys keep quiet about it so she can tell Jo herself.”

“Yeah, I ain’t itching to leak those tapes anyway, believe me, blondie.”

“Right. Well, see you in New Mexico.”

“Yeah.” Dean hangs up, and she closes her phone.

“Wanna put on some music?” Sam asks, reaching for her hand.

She nods, bringing his hand to her lips to kiss his knuckles. “As long as it’s not Celine Dion.”

+

Dean shows up to Santa Fe around the same time Sam and Jess do, and they meet at the first motel on the edge of town. Sam and Jess get a room next to Dean’s, and it absolutely reeks of Southwestern culture-- cactus paintings on the walls, sunset-colored bedspread, Aztec-inspired patterns on the throw pillows, clay coffee mugs instead of the usual motel porcelain. Now that they’re close to the southern border, Jess makes a mental note to make the boys go to a real Mexican restaurant before they leave town.

“Alright. Give me the skinny,” Dean says, swiping his hand through the air. “It’s from Ash?”

“No, it’s from Jo,” Jess corrects, taking the folder out of her bag and setting it on the small table in front of Dean. Sam sits on the edge of the bed a few feet away, and they wait as Dean impatiently skims over the notes and newspaper articles.

“Jo did all this?”

“Yeah. Thorough, right?” Sam says.

“No kiddin’. I see what she’s talking about. Okay, so whatever’s behind this has a thing for blonde chicks. Good thing we know a blonde chick.”

Sam’s face scrunches up in confusion. “What?”

“He’s talking about me,” Jess clarifies. “He wants to use me as bait.”

Dean nods.

“What? No! Absolutely not, Dean. That’s insane. We’re not using Jess as bait.”

Jess laughs a little at her boyfriend’s outburst. “Sam, honey, I’ll be fine. Dean is right. It’s the obvious answer.”

“Yeah, she’ll have her phone on her and we’ll arm her to the teeth,” Dean says with a shrug. 

“I don’t like this, guys.”

“You don’t like anything,” Dean dismisses. “Let’s case the joint.”

+

They take Dean’s car to the apartment building, but before they can make it inside, the run into Jo in the parking lot, just getting out of her car.

“Hey, I guess you convinced your mom to let you come,” Sam greets her with a small smile. “Good for you.”

“That’s right,” Jo says with a thin smile.

(she’s lying. there’s no way she’s not lying. she didn’t even try to convince ellen. she just told her she’s going to visit friends or something.)

“Great,” Jess says with a smile and a nod. 

“Dunno if this is such a good idea, kid,” Dean pipes up.

“Don’t call me ‘kid’. You think I can’t hunt just ‘cause I’m a girl?”

Dean laughs a little bit, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Nah, I think girls can hunt just fine. I just don’t think you have any idea what you’re doing. And I don’t want to be the one to tell Ellen you died on the job ‘cause you made some stupid rookie mistake.”

“I’m not stupid. I’m not going to make a mistake. I learned all about hunting from my dad’s stories before he passed.”

“We’ll show her the ropes,” Sam says to his brother. “We’ll look out for her.”

“Sam,” Dean says, shaking his head once, his voice hard. He takes his brother by the shoulder and drags him several feet away to talk in private.

Jess watches them go for a second before turning back to Jo. “Don’t mind Dean. he’s just stubborn.”

“Yeah. I guess I can be stubborn too.”

(you _guess_? jess thinks. she can really tell that they’re related, now that she knows the truth about jo’s parents.)

“Just please don’t try to go off on your own or anything, okay?” She says to Jo. “Nobody’s first hunt should be a solo mission.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

“The guys really know what they’re doing. We’ll get to the bottom of it.”

Sam and Dean come back then, unreadable expressions on both their faces, Dean’s hands in fists at his sides. “Let’s check the place out.”

“I have an appointment with the landlord,” Jo says. “Told him my boyfriend and I are looking for a new place and we want a tour.”

“Your boyfriend?” Dean asks.

Jo nods, grabbing onto his arm. “Play the part. Let’s go.”

Dean shoots Sam and Jess a panicked glance over his shoulder, his eyes screaming about how this girl who doesn’t know she’s his sister is pretending to be his girlfriend. Jess and Sam both kind of laugh, and follow them inside.

+

After the landlord shows them around, Jess and Sam keep watch while Jo and Dean scan the place for EMF. They come back with confirmation of high readings and a lock of blonde hair still attached to the scalp.

“We got it from the vents,” Jo says gravely. “And I swear I saw a hand, all grey and slimy.”

+

Another girl goes missing the next day. The gang finds reason to believe the victims are being kept in the walls, so they find an empty apartment, break in, and Dean bashes a hole in the drywall. The passage is too narrow for him to fit, so Jess and Jo go in without him.

“Do you see that?” Jo asks breathlessly as they shove through the dark passage. “On the floor.”

Jess looks down. Viscous, sticky grey goo. “Gross. Ectoplasm?”

“I think so.”

“Ugh.”

“Do you think--”

Jo’s question goes unfinished. She crumbles to the ground.

“Fuck!” Jess exclaims without meaning to. She reaches forward, trying to pick Jo up off the floor in front of her, but the quarters are too cramped for her to get a good grip.

“Jessica?” Dean’s voice comes from the opening. She can hear him breaking more dry wall.

Before Jess can say anything back to him, though, she hears her own skull crack, and the dark world goes even darker.

+

(come on, she’d said, smiling-- it’s not that cold.

no, sam had replied uneasily. i’m, uh… i don’t want to step on a sharp rock.

you won’t!

is that a fact or are you just trying to talk me into it?

she’d laughed. sam had too, a little bit. he’d eyed the dark water.

come on!

uh… jess… i have to tell you something.

what?

um…

you can tell me anything, sam.

baby… i can’t swim.

she hadn’t quite believed it. you can’t swim? she repeated back at her nineteen-year-old 6’4 boyfriend.

no, he confirmed. i can’t swim. i just sort of, uh… i never had the opportunity to learn how. he stuck his foot into the water as if to prove it, and then scratched sheepishly at the back of his head.

come on, she’d said, wading back to the shoreline, reaching for his big hand. his skin was warm from the sun, his eyes bright, his hair sort of messed up. i’ll teach you, she said. please?

he gave her a small nod and a smaller smile, and she fell more in love with him, but it didn’t feel like falling, it felt like rising.)

“Are you okay, Jess?”

“Mmm,” she groans, waking up to Jo’s voice. She looks around for Lake Tahoe, for the sun, for Sam. But she’s not in California, she’s in New Mexico. And she’s not at the beach, she’s…

“Jo, where are we?” She mumbles, rubbing at her head.

(so my skull didn’t crack. it just sounded like that. fuck. so much for healing from the car accident!)

“We’re… I don’t know,” Jo admits. “I think we might be in the basement. I can’t see anything.”

(sam. i wish sam were here. i really wish sam were here.)

The pain is so heavy in her head, she can barely think of anything but that.

“Jo, I think I’m kinda fucked up,” she manages.

“What?”

“Aaaugh. We were in a car accident a while back. I hurt my head really bad. It’s… it was still healing. And it just got smashed again. I feel like I’m going to fall over.”

“You’re sitting on the floor.”

“I know.”

“Shit,” Jo mutters.

“Hello?” Another female voice, shaky and dry, calls out. The missing girl.

“Hey,” Jo calls back eagerly. 

(jess can hardly tell where they are. just that it’s dark and smells damp. she wants sam.)

Jo and the mystery girl exchange a few words. Jess doesn’t bother trying to parse them.

“Are you listening?” Jo prods her shoulder. She cringes hard.

“Me?” Jess asks uneasily.

“Yeah,” Jo says. “Can you hear me?”

“Mm. Barely.”

(sam)

“Where’s your phone?”

Clumsily, Jess digs it out of her pocket and holds it up. Jo takes it. 

“Jo. How long have we been here?” Jess manages to ask.

“I don’t know. Hours. You’ve been out.”

“Call Sam?”

“I can’t get reception down here,” Jo sighs, flipping Jess’ phone shut and handing it back to her.

“Keep it,” Jess mumbles, her eyes drooping shut again. She lets herself fall forward a little, her forehead landing against a cold, damp stone wall.

“You’re freaking me out.”

“Yeah, I’m freaking me out too.” She clenches her jaw, trying to stay awake. Her hands feel numb and freezing cold.

(that day on the beach it was so warm, it’s like the sun was closer, like it was soaking us in some protective spell. we kissed in the water and didn’t care that my parents were sitting on the beach. it was like we were drunk on nothing.)

“Jess!”

“I’m awake.”

“They’ll find us,” Jo says, but her tone suggests she might not quite believe it. “Sam and Dean. They’ll find us. We’re gonna be okay.”

(sam)

“Mmkay,” Jess mumbles, the blackness closing back in, swallowing her up.

+

(they’d stayed out on the deck late that night, talking, drinking a bottle of wine. her parents had gone to bed, but they kept the bottle hidden behind the cooler just in case, and they were drinking it out of mugs with two spent tea bags sitting on the table in front of them as a cover. just in case. they’d laughed about this as they’d arranged it. nineteen years old, and living on their own most of the time-- the moores had no control over what their daughter drank while she was in palo alto, but when she was with them, they policed her militantly. it’s okay, jess, sam had reassured her after she’d apologized for the millionth time.

it wasn’t her first time drinking, but it was her first time properly being drunk. they’d talked and talked and talked for hours. sam mentioned his brother for the first time, and his father, and admitted that he couldn’t remember his mother. the shy, closed-off boy from her statistics class had finally opened up. at some point she moved over on the picnic table bench and climbed onto his lap sideways, and he’d leaned over her, his arm around her, his heart beating against her shoulder. she’d felt a lightness in her chest that was unparalleled. he smelled like lake water, but she loved him. god, she loved him.

they sat like that for a long time, and he kissed her like he never had before, even though they’d been dating for months, even though they’d had clumsy sex a few times. he kissed her like he was making up how to do it from scratch. he stopped feeling like the shy, closed-off boy from statistics. he felt confident to her, strong-armed, like a man who knew what he wanted. and she knew what she wanted, too. 

they didn’t stumble inside to go to bed until the mid-summer sun was edging upward. they hadn’t noticed how much time had passed, wrapped up in their conversations, wrapped up in each other. bigfoot could have been skipping through the forest around them and jess would not have noticed.

she remembers one thing from that night clearer than the other things. remembers begging the universe, silently. some would have called it praying, but jess had never really thought much of a god. she was begging the universe to never let this boy become a stranger. begging to keep him all to herself. begging to never stop feeling the way he made her feel on that endless night, bright, electric, on the deck of her family’s vacation home. safe and exciting at the same time. he was sturdy and warm and patient and he teased her and he was smart and he was always up to share a boat of diner french fries and laugh about nothing. she had always considered herself naturally independent, but now all she wanted was to be independent with sam.)

A burst of hot, hard noise stabs into her eardrums. She had been dozing, lulled into a pillowy reminiscence, lulled by the heavy pain that still pulses through her skull. But the gunshot ripping from Dean Winchester’s shotgun wakes her up.

“Jess!”

Sam’s frantic voice cuts through the warbling of the dark, damp room. 

“Sam,” she mumbles, her eyes drooping closed again. She reaches for him.

+

The next thing she notices is the rumbling of Dean’s car under her. She almost panics. But then she notices another thing-- Sam, the soft scent of him, the weight of his arms around her, the rhythm of his breathing. 

“Sam,” she mumbles again, for the second time in about thirty seconds, as far as she can tell. Her hand closes around his arm, and she’s grateful for him.

“Shh, don’t try to talk, baby. I got you. You’re okay.”

+

The doctors run their tests and scold her for re-injuring herself so soon after healing from the car accident, but they let her leave the hospital after two days, and with Jess doing better and the haunting sealed up with concrete (thanks to a stolen cement truck and Dean Winchester’s willingness to drive anything), Sam starts driving west.

“I’m glad we’re so close to Tahoe,” he comments as he pulls onto the highway.

“Yeah,” she says, leaning back against the passenger seat, reaching for his hand. “Me too.”

“You really scared me back there, babe.” He laughs a little. “You gotta stop hitting your head.”

“Believe me, Sam, I’d love to.”

“Ha.”

“Where did Dean end up going?”

“He drove Ellen and Jo back to the Roadhouse. I think he’s gonna hang around there for a minute and call when he needs us.”

(hang around the roadhouse? jess thinks, almost slyly. good for him. make your move, dean.)

“Wait,” she realizes out loud. “Ellen?”

“Yeah… she called while you and Jo were missing,” Sam admits. “She was pissed. Jo told her she was going to Vegas to play some poker. But Ellen got a bad feeling, so she called Dean, and he sort of told her the truth. I’m glad I’m not in that car with ‘em.”

“No kidding.”

“Dean and Ellen, they got in a whole big fight on the phone. I guess the thing with my dad was more intense than Bobby let on. Sounds like he really pissed Ellen off back in the day. She said something how this wouldn’t be the first time a Winchester guy let her down.”

(that does not surprise me.)

“Hey, Sam?” she says instead of responding.

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember that first night we ever spent at the lakehouse?” She asks. “The summer before we moved in together?”

“Yeah. Your mom made grilled watermelon and I thought it was so weird.”

She laughs a little bit. 

“And your parents kept making comments about how stupid it was for us to move in together since we’d only been dating a couple months,” Sam adds.

“Yeah. But we knew better. I meant do you remember that night? When we were drinking wine on the deck, pretending it was tea in case my parents came out?”

“Of course I do.” He raises her hand to his lips and kisses it, stroking over her knuckles with his thumb. “We sat out there until the sun started coming up.”

“Yeah.”

“It was a good night.”

“That’s what I was thinking about when I was unconscious in the creepy murder basement.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” she says, watching the highway stretch before them. “And teaching you how to swim.”

He laughs. “Oh, god. Teaching a nineteen year old how to swim. That was kinda ridiculous. But you were so patient.”

“Now that I know what I know about your childhood, I’m not surprised you couldn’t swim. You probably can’t ride a bike either.”

“I can ride a bike,” Sam protests.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Dean taught me.”

“Who taught Dean?”

Sam frowns a little bit. Seems to think for a moment. Then he shrugs. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I can’t really… imagine my dad doin’ that kind of thing. Maybe my mom taught him. He was almost five when she died, is that old enough?”

“I don’t know." 

"Maybe she taught him how to ride a tricycle or something. Or maybe Bobby taught him, or Pastor Jim.”

Jess nods a few times.

“Hey, I think we should take some time off. I want to make sure you’re all the way better before we get back out there.”

“Yeah,” Jess agrees. “I think I can deal with that.”

+

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! the second part of season 2 will be up within a couple weeks. we're kinda flying through this one, season 3 will likely be longer.


	4. second half of season two

Sam and Jess stay at the lakehouse alone for two weeks, reading and hiking and working odd jobs, driving around northern California to find more lore books to stock their little homemade library with. Dean works a demon case on his own, and when he shows up at the lakehouse afterward, Jess grills him on all the details. He tells her about how you can apparently summon a demon to a crossroad and make a deal with it, selling your soul.

“What exactly does it mean to sell your soul?” She asks, frowning, ripping at the label on her beer bottle.

Dean shrugs. “I don’t know, exactly. You start seeing black dogs-- hellhounds-- and then after a few days of that, they come and drag you off to hell, I guess. Nothin’ good.”

“Damn.”

“Anyone who does that is stupid,” Sam dismisses.

A dark cast falls over Dean’s normally sparkling green eyes. And once he has a few drinks in him, he admits the other thing he learned-- that his father sold his soul to the yellow-eyed demon in exchange for Dean’s life. That John is in hell, whatever that means.

Somewhere along the way, as they’re eating dinner and drinking, the power goes out. It comes back on a moment later, but the heating won’t work, even after Sam messes with the breaker. So the three of them build a fire, clumsy from the alcohol, and Jess wanders the house to track down extra blankets for their beds.

She deposits a couple in her and Sam’s room, and the rest in Dean’s room across the hall. When she heads downstairs, she catches a shred of the boys’ conversation.

“Sammy, he said I might have to kill you.”

She goes cold. Colder than she already was, anyway. She stops in her tracks.

“Why the fuck would you have to kill me, Dean?” Sam demands.

“I dunno. He said I either have to save you or kill you. Said I might have to kill Jess, too.”

(what the fuck?)

“Okay, well, fuck that.”

“Obviously I’m not gonna kill either of you,” Dean defends, words running into each other a little from the cheap whiskey he’d brought with him to Tahoe.

“Why would he say that to you, Dean?”

“I dunno. Man was cryptic as hell, Sammy, you know that.”

“Jesus.”

“That demon I met. She offered to bring him back.”

(bring him back? jess’ mind repeats. she glances over her shoulders, up the stairs, for no real reason.)

“That’s insane.”

“Well, I didn’t do it.”

“Yeah. Good. There would be some kind of terrible consequence, I’m sure.”

(fuck this.) Jess moves, heading toward the living room again, and the boys stop talking.

“Hey, Dean?” She says as she sits back down next to Sam.

“Sup, blondie?”

“Your dad clearly had issues. I know you love him and you miss him, but telling you to kill your brother is incredibly fucked up,” she says matter-of-factly. Her chest is tight, though, and she reaches for Sam’s hand as a meager creature comfort.

“Watch how you talk about my dad,” Dean grumbles, leaning back against the couch. “You barely knew the guy.”

“She’s right, Dean. That’s messed up,” Sam says. “He had no right to say that to you. Especially without an explanation.”

“Yeah. And nobody is killing anybody,” Jess adds. “At least among the three of us. Agreed?”

“I said I wasn’t gonna do it,” Dean protests.

The fire flickers. They drop the subject.

That night, Jess lays awake, pressed up against Sam to try to leech his body heat, unable to quiet her mind. (why the fuck would he say that? kill sam? maybe kill me too? what did he know?)

+

A few days later, Sam and Jess are in the library, and Dean is sleeping in, when the doorbell rings.

“I thought the heating guy was coming at three,” Jess comments, grabbing Sam’s arm to look at his watch-- it’s barely ten in the morning.

“Yeah, I dunno, that’s what he said on the phone,” Sam shrugs.

“Huh. Maybe he’s early.”

She stands up from the table, resting her hand on Sam’s shoulder for a second as she walks by, and heads down to answer the door. Being as remote as the Moore family lakehouse is, she’s never once known the doorbell to just ring with some unannounced visitor. They can’t even get mail there, let alone order pizza or anything.

She flicks the deadbolt open and reaches for the knob, but then she hesitates.

(this is going to be bad news. someone is dead. something bad is going to happen.)

(but whoever’s on the other side of this door isn’t a threat themselves, she realizes as an afterthought. so open the door. it’s okay for right now.)

She does.

A short woman with layered auburn hair is standing on the doormat, a worried look on her face. Her car is parked behind her, haphazard, next to the Impala.

“Hi,” Jess says, taking in the girl’s appearance. She looks around Jess and Sam’s age. 

“Hi. Sorry for just showing up like this. My name’s Ava. Are you Jessica?” She asks nervously.

Jess frowns. “Yeah. I’m sorry, uh, who are you? How do you know my name?”

“I’m just a secretary from Arizona. But I, uh… can I please come in and talk to you about something? I swear I’m not crazy, I just…” she trails off, gesturing vaguely.

“Believe me, I’m not going to think you’re crazy,” Jess assures her with a laugh. “Come in.”

“This is a weird question, but is there a tall guy with you? With kind of overgrown brown hair, like, really tall? Like the size of a door frame?”

“My boyfriend Sam?” Jess suggests, closing the door once Ava is inside.

“Is he like… here?” Ava asks.

“Yeah. Sit down, make yourself comfortable. I’ll go get him.”

Ava nods once and makes for the couch in front of the fireplace. A weird feeling in her chest, Jess hurries upstairs.

“Hey, Sam? Can you come down here?” She calls from the top of the stairs.

“Yeah, babe.”

She turns and goes back down, and hears his footsteps following her a moment later. He joins her and Ava in the living room, giving the latter a strange look before sitting down next to Jess.

“That’s him,” Ava says with a sigh. “I… this is going to sound crazy but I swear I’m not crazy, or like, on drugs. But I saw him in a dream the other night.”

(she’s like us, and max, and andy.)

“That doesn’t sound crazy to us,” Sam assures her gently. “What happened in the dream?”

“I saw you walk into a warehouse and step on a landmine,” Ava admits sheepishly. “And I saw you get blown to bits.”

“Shit,” Sam mutters.

“Do you know where the warehouse was?” Jess asks.

Ava shakes her head. “You guys believe me?”

“Yeah. Let me guess, you’re twenty-three years old, and you have visions, and it just started within the last year,” Sam lists off.

Ava’s eyes go wide. Her lips part.

“You’re not the only one,” Jess assures her. “Sam and I are the same way. And we’ve met a couple others, too.”

“How do you…”

“It’s a really long story,” Sam sighs. “You uh… know anything about a guy with yellow eyes?”

She nods, frowning hard, looking down. She gestures toward Jess. “Yeah. He’s obsessed with her. That’s how I knew your name.”

(he’s obsessed with me?)

“What do you mean, obsessed with me?” Jess asks, her heart hiccuping a little.

“He thinks you’re the strongest. Stronger than anyone.”

“How do you know this?” Sam asks softly.

“It’s a long story,” Ava says, repeating him. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours? I have some things to show you guys, too. Some stuff I maybe borrowed from this psychiatrist in Indiana.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, rubbing at his mouth the same way Dean does. “Yeah, uh, I’ll put on some coffee.”

+

Ava tells Jess and Sam about Scott Carey, a man in Indiana who recently died. She’d seen his death in her dreams, just like she’d seen Sam get blown up in a warehouse, but by the time she took it seriously enough to fly to Indiana, it was too late. So she broke into Scott’s therapist’s office and stole the tape recordings of their sessions on the hunch that she’d find answers about herself on them. And she had.

“Scott told his therapist the yellow-eyed man is a demon, and he’s building an army for hell,” Ava recounts, fear trembling in her eyes. She looks down into her now-lukewarm coffee. “Scott had been really paranoid for a year before he died.”

“How did he die, anyway?” Sam asks softly.

“He was stabbed in the chest,” Ava almost whispers. “In a dark parking lot. I dreamed it again and again and again. That’s why I came here to find you as soon as I saw your death, Sam-- I knew I had to get here before it was too late.”

“Appreciate it.”

“Do you know if the police have any suspects for Scott’s murder?” Jess asks.

“There’s no one.”

“So it was the demon,” Sam suggests.

Ava shrugs. “I don’t know. He’s trying to build us into an army. He has plans for us. Why would he kill Scott? But then again, I really can’t make sense of his motives because uh…” she turns to Jess. “You were supposed to die. But now you’re psychic, just like the rest of us.”

Her spine a little cold, Jess scoots a fraction of an inch closer to Sam without really meaning to.

Dean wanders down the stairs just then, hair still damp from an apparent shower, the sleeves of his grey henley shirt pushed up to reveal his thorny rose tattoo with his mother’s faded initials. He scratches at it absently as he takes in the scene of Sam, Jess, and Ava on the couch.

“Who’s your friend?” He asks in that devil-may-care fake cool guy tone of voice Jess absolutely hates.

“Dean, this is Ava Wilson. Ava, this is my older brother Dean.” 

“Hi,” she says with a small wave.

He gives a nod in response.

“There’s coffee in the kitchen,” Jess suggests.

“Cool.” He heads toward it.

“I’ll be right back, I’m just gonna talk to my brother real quick,” Sam says, standing up and following after Dean.

“Does he know?” Ava asks, whispering.

Jess nods. “Yeah. He does. Um, Ava, what did you mean about… how do you know I was supposed to die?”

“I dreamed your death for a week straight,” Ava admits. “Last Halloween. He sliced you open and strung you up on the ceiling.”

Jess’ hands fist up. Her ears go numb at the memory. How scared she had been, the pain she’d felt, the way her entire life basically got slashed open and strung up onto the ceiling that night. Hearing Ava talk about it so flippantly almost stokes the fire of rage that lingers deep in her chest ever since that night.

(don’t be a psycho, jess, she chastises herself silently. it’s not ava’s fault.)

She releases her fists and flicks a brief, insincere smile onto her lips. “Yeah. That’s right. But Sam came home in time so he just sort of left and I didn’t die.”

“Right. And now you’re one of us.”

“I guess.”

Ava stands up, setting her coffee down. “Listen, I have to go. I really need to head home. I’m getting married in a couple weeks, and I have five million things to do.”

“Right,” Jess says, standing to walk her to the door. “I’ll make sure Sam doesn’t set foot in any creepy warehouses anytime soon. Can we exchange numbers? Just in case?”

“Yeah, smart.”

They do, and Ava leaves, thanking Jess for the coffee. 

It’s not until about five hours later that Jess has a dark realization.

(she just walked into some kind of seriously bad danger.)

+

Ava won’t answer Jess’ calls. Sam finds her on MySpace and sends a message to her fiance Brady, but he doesn’t answer it. 

“We need to go check on her,” Jess insists. 

“Babe, we don’t even know where she lives. Just the city.”

“I know where she lives.”

“What?” Dean asks, scrunching his face up exactly like his younger brother does.

“I can see her apartment building. I know what floor she lives in. Which unit. I can find her,” Jess says impatiently.

“Okay, Danny Torrance,” Dean says. “Fine. Let’s go to Arizona.”

“It’s a twelve hour drive,” Sam comments.

Dean grabs his keys. “If you guys come in my car, we’ll be there in ten.”

+

They find Ava’s fiance dead, sprawled and bloody on the bed, with no signs Ava ever made it back to the apartment. 

“Sulfur on the windowsill,” Dean points out quietly. “Dammit.”

+

Jess loses sleep over it. But there’s nothing they can do.

“We’ll find the demon,” Sam reassures her half a million times over the next couple days. 

They end up on a case in Idaho, which Sam hears about from one of the online forums he frequents. A woman killed her neighbor, claiming angels told her to do it-- on its own, not terribly suspicious as far as the supernatural goes, but then a totally different person in the same town murders a stranger with the same story.

“Whatever happened that night, Gloria definitely believes it was an angel,” Sam says once he’s back in their motel room after interviewing her in the psych ward. He takes off the black shirt and white collar he’d worn as a disguise, reaching for a flannel to pull over his white undershirt. “Blinding light, feelings of spiritual ecstasy, the works. I mean, she's living in a locked ward and she's totally at peace.”

“Angels don’t exist,” Dean says flatly from where he’s lounging on the motel couch.

“You don’t know that.”

Jess glances up from her laptop, eyebrows raised a little. 

“Anyway, why’d she stab the dude?” Dean continues.

“She said she had to kill him,” Sam answers, buttoning his shirt up. “He was evil.”

“I can’t find any dirt on him,” Jess says, glancing back to her laptop screen. “No criminal record. He seems like a completely normal guy.”

“So then Gloria's just your standard-issue wacko. I mean, she wouldn't be the first nutjob in history to kill in the name of religion. Know what I mean?” Dean yawns into his hand.

“No, but she's the second in town to murder because an angel told them to. Little bit odd, don't you think?

“It is weird,” Jess agrees.

“Odd, sure. Supernatural, maybe. But it ain’t angels,” Dean says.

(just let the boys argue this one out, jess suggests to herself, pretending not to listen.)

“Why do you say that?” Sam asks, frowning.

“‘Cause there’s no such thing.”

Sam scoffs. “Dean, there's ten times as much lore about angels as there is about anything else we've ever hunted. For all we know, they might exist.”

“Look, some legends, you file under bullshit,” Dean says with a shrug.

“And you have angels on the bullshit list?”

“I ain’t never seen one. I believe what I can see,” Dean concludes. “Gotta be a demon, or a spirit, something like that. Can we go check out Gloria’s apartment, already?”

“I stopped by on my way back,” Sam says. “No sulfur, no EMF, nothing.”

“So we go to the vic’s house,” Jess pipes up.

(i would love to get out of this stupid motel room and have something to distract me from ava’s dead fiance.)

“Yeah, that might be the move. Gloria did say the angel gave her a sign right by his doorway,” Sam sighs. 

“Alrighty then. Let’s hit it.” Dean reaches for his jacket.

+

The “sign from the angel” turns out to be a light up angel figure sitting on the porch-- a shitty plastic decoration leftover from Christmas.

“Ha! This is just terrific,” Dean laughs, kicking the angel over. “Well, I think I learned a valuable lesson: Always take down your Christmas decorations after New Year's, or you might get filleted by a hooker from God.”

“Hilarious,” Sam says dryly.

(no. gloria was right. there’s something under this house.)

“Sam?” Jess says, almost timidly.

“What, babe?”

“Um… there’s a storm cellar out back with dead bodies in it,” she admits.

“Huh?” Dean asks loudly.

“I just know it, okay?”

“Okay,” Sam says, frowning. He slides a protective arm around her shoulders. “Let’s go check it out.”

+

Her intuition is right, as usual. They break the lock on the cellar and dig around a little bit to find a pile of human bones.

There’s a third murder the next day, and when they investigate the dead man’s house, Sam finds a computer full of graphic sexual emails exchanged with a middle school girl.

“So it’s an avenging angel?” Sam suggests as the three of them try to sort through everything over dinner later.

“Something that thinks it’s an angel, or is pretending to be,” Dean corrects.

+

Turns out all of the murderers go to the same church, so the next day, they go to check it out. The first death in this string was one of the church’s preachers.

“Well, whole thing makes a ton of sense now,” Dean comments as the three of them get back into his car, Sam in the passenger seat, Jess in the back. “Devoted priest dies a violent death? That's vengeful spirit material right there. And he knew all the vics. Probably knew all their darkest secrets from confession or whatever it’s called.”

Sam huffs loudly, crossing his arms like a child.

“Aw, come on, man, what’s your deal?” Dean probes. “From the git-go you've been willing to buy this angel bullshit. I mean, what's next, are you going to start praying every day?”

“I do pray, Dean,” Sam says quietly.

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“Huh.”

An awkward silence fills the car as Dean pulls out of the spot. 

(jess hadn’t known sam was the praying type. they’d never really talked about religion-- it rarely came up in her thoughts, since she was raised completely without it, agnostic or atheist by a silent default. but somehow it doesn’t really surprise her that sam has faith. he’s always carried with him an unearned optimism. always had hope.)

“Maybe we need to stop hunting this,” Sam says quietly. “If it’s an angel, carrying out God’s will, maybe we need to step aside.”

“Do you hear yourself, Sammy?” Dean asks.

“I don’t know if we can discount it as um, God’s will that easily,” Jessica adds from the backseat.

“You guys, come on. Just because you don’t have faith doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

“You know who else had faith?” Dean asks, his tone weird, his hands tight around the wheel. “Mom. She used to tell me when she tucked me in that angels were watching over us. In fact, that was the last thing she ever said to me.”

(oh shit.)

“You never told me that,” Sam says.

“Well, what's to tell? She was wrong. There was nothing protecting her.”

(jess has never really heard dean talk about his mother. according to sam, he never really would growing up, either.)

“Look, we’ll figure out if Father Gregory was buried or cremated. Then if he’s buried, we’ll summon his spirit with a seance, okay? Figure it out,” Dean goes on, tone shifted back to his normal range.

“Yeah,” Jess agrees. “That’s a good idea. That way we can rule it out, at least. Right, Sam?”

“Fine,” he says quietly.

+

The seance doesn’t rule a haunting out-- it rules it right in. They summon Father Gregory’s spirit behind the church, and Father Reynolds, the remaining priest, walks in on them just in time to help send Father Gregory’s spirit on with some religious rites Jess doesn’t understand.

The three of them drive back to the motel in silence afterwards, and Dean goes to his room. Sam and Jess take turns showering in their room, and she sits on the edge of the bed after hers, drying her hair with a towel, waiting for Sam to finish.

He takes his time.

(how long has he even been in there, she finds herself thinking several minutes later. she’s had time to get all the extra water out of her hair, moisturize her whole body, change into pajamas, check all her stacked-up emails from her aunt, clean out her purse, and flip through all of the tv channels before deciding nothing is on and turning it off. so she unmakes the bed, tossing the creepy motel quilt aside since she knows for a fact they don’t get washed, and she slides in, sitting against the headboard.)

(there’s a bible in the nightstand, i bet. maybe i should read it. ha.)

She doesn’t.

Eventually, Sam comes out, wearing a fresh tee shirt and boxers. He sits on the bed next to her.

“Are you okay, honey?” She asks, reaching for him.

He sighs, his head drooping down, his damp hair falling into his face.

(he needs a haircut.)

“I just really wanted to believe, you know?”

“I’m sorry, Sam.”

He leans down slowly, curled up small, his head on Jess’ lap. She tangles her hand into his hair.

“There's so much evil out there in the world, Jess, I feel like I could drown in it.”

“Yeah,” she says quietly. “I hear you.”

“I wanted to think that maybe, uh… maybe I could… even be saved. And I let it cloud my judgement. Dean was right the whole time.”

“Dean was right this time,” Jess points out. “That doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things. It doesn’t mean you have to give up on what you believe.”

“Yeah, I guess.” He sighs slowly. “It’s just really disappointing.”

She looks up from her slumped-over boyfriend and surveys the room just for something to look at. The run-down, nondescript motel room, one of many that have somehow become the backdrop of her life. Guns and salt and seances and exorcisms. 

(how did this even happen?)

She thinks of her parents. Of the dead man, no older than her and Sam, bloody in his bed in Arizona, his fiance nowhere to be found.

“I hear you,” she says again, quieter.

+

The three of them take on a werewolf case in Salem, Oregon, a few days later. It goes quickly, but it makes Jess wonder for the millionth time if there are any horror movie monsters that _aren’t_ real. 

(maybe sam’s right, she muses as they drive away, heading south to tahoe since they don’t have any new leads-- maybe angels are real.)

They stop for lunch halfway through the nine hour drive, at the border between Oregon and California. The restaurant happens to be right next to a Target, and Jess happens to be in near-desperate need of tampons, so she heads in while the boys hit the Sportsman’s Warehouse next door for some ammo.

Considering the fact that it’s Target, and she’s an upper-middle-class white girl in her early 20s who hasn’t been to a Target in a while, she gets distracted. Ends up with a couple shirts, a pair of jeans, a new face wash, a box of cranberry pumpkin seed granola bars, and some sage green hair ties since she has managed to lose all but two of her hair ties. After she checks out she stops in the bathroom to take care of the tampon situation and then goes outside to put her Target bag in Sam’s car.

Except she can’t find Sam’s car. 

(i’m dumb and i forgot where he parked, she figures as she wanders around the shared parking lot. but no. she finds dean’s shiny black chevy impala. and sam had parked two spots away from it, but his blue chevy cavalier is nowhere to be found.)

“Hey, Jess, where’s Sammy?”

She turns. Dean catches up to her, a Sportsman’s Warehouse bag in his left hand, his car keys in his right.

“Um, with you.”

“No, he said he was going out to wait for you in the car.”

“Well, his car’s gone,” she points out. “It was right there.”

Dean frowns. “You guys low on gas? There’s a station right over there. Maybe he went to fill up.”

“No, he did that right before we stopped for lunch. The tank is full.”

“...Bathroom?”

“Dean, why would he drive away to find a bathroom? There are four stores by this parking lot and they probably all have bathrooms.”

Dean makes a face, stretching his mouth out on the sides. “Okay. So he disappeared.”

“He wouldn’t just leave.”

“Well, seems like he did, blondie.”

She exhales hard, digging into her purse for her phone. Once she finds it, she calls Sam. A ringtone cuts through the air.

“What the fuck?” Dean mutters, closing the last ten or so feet between him and his car. He reaches for something on the hood. “This is Sam’s phone.”

“Huh?” Jess snaps her Razr shut and follows him. Sure enough, it’s Sam’s Blackberry.

“He just left it on my car and drove the fuck away.” Dean unlocks the driver’s seat and tosses his bag into the back. Then, he pauses, looking down at his shoes. He reaches to the ground and picks something up.“Is this yours?”

He turns around, holding her duffel and her laptop bag in one hand.

“Um, yeah,” she answers, blinking. “He left my stuff… under your car?”

“I guess that was nice of him,” Dean says, looking down at the bags. “Always a considerate fella, my brother.”

“Dean, we need to find him. This isn’t funny.”

“Yeah, I’m not laughing.” Shaking his head, Dean turns to put Jess’ stuff in the Impala’s backseat. “Get in the car. Let’s start looking.”

+

They drive all around the town they’d stopped in, but Sam is nowhere to be found. So eventually, after an argument that spans almost an entire hour, they figure they should just finish the trip to the lakehouse, and maybe he’ll be waiting for them there.

But of course he isn’t.

“Son of a bitch.” Dean slams the car door shut, rubbing at his mouth as he looks around the lakehouse’s driveway. “Don’t you have freaky brain powers? Can’t you just look into your mind and know where he is?”

“It doesn’t work like that, Dean, I can’t control it.” She makes her way to the door and fumbles with her keys to unlock it. “Dammit. Where could he possibly be?”

“I’m gonna call Ellen.”

Ellen hasn’t seen Sam. She tells Dean that Jo ran off, though, after Ellen told her the truth about who her father is-- so Dean tries her next, but she hasn’t seen Sam either. Neither has Bobby.

Jess tries calling Ava Wilson again, just in case. But she doesn’t answer.

“What are we supposed to do? Do we report him missing?” She asks Dean after they’ve exhausted their resources.

“Beats the hell out of me. But getting the cops involved on a guy who has at least one illegal gun on him, and probably a BOLO or two out on his description-- I don’t think that’s the million dollar idea.”

She sighs, pushing her hair off her face. “If we can’t find him ourselves, we’re going to have to call the cops. He could be in danger.”

“Are you stupid?” Dean demands, gesturing his right hand through the air. His silver ring catches the light. “The cops? My brother wasn’t kidnapped by some clown suit freakshow with too much time on his hands and a taste for ten-foot-tall nerds. If something has him, it’s gotta be something supernatural.”

“You don’t know that. Normal stuff doesn’t just become impossible when you start hunting monsters,” Jess snaps.

“I guess we just gotta sit tight for a minute. Give him the chance to show up,” Dean says with a shrug.

“We can’t just sit around and do nothing,” Jess dismisses.

“Well, if you have a better idea, I’m listening.” He flops down on the couch. 

She doesn’t.

+

The next day, Sam still hasn’t showed, so over breakfast Jess and Dean finally agree on one thing-- that they need to go back out looking for Sam.

She writes him a note in case he shows up at the lakehouse, and leaves his phone plugged into the wall by the fireplace so he’ll be able to find it and call. 

“Where are we even going?” Jess asks tiredly, two hours into the drive, Dean’s favorite Led Zeppelin tape playing almost too loud for her to talk over.

He reaches for the dial and turns it down. “Nebraska, I guess. Ash is a genius, he might be able to help us out.”

A rosy cast falls over Dean’s cheeks and the bridge of his nose, and his big green eyes flit left and right uneasily. (crush, and all, jess figures, and she would have teased him about it a little bit if the circumstances were different, but as it stands, she’s too worried about sam to think about anything else)

“Fine,” she agrees with a nod. “Okay.”

“I’m honestly not too worried about the kid, you know? He used to do this shit all the time.”

(he’s lying, he’s worried. he’s just trying to justify it.)

She glances toward him, a little surprised. “Used to disappear?”

Dean nods. “Yeah, he’d get in a fight with my dad, Dad would lose his temper, Sam would scamper off for a day or two. He’d always turn back up, or we’d find him.”

Jess frowns. “Where would he… go?”

“Kid’s a legend when it comes to finding places to squirrel up. Empty house, abandoned building, library… or sometimes he’d grab a bus to Sioux Falls if we were nearby and bunk at Bobby’s, and Bobby would always call to let us know he’d turned up.”

(running away sounds very much unlike sam, the sam she knows, her sam. but there are still things about the winchester boys’ childhood she doesn’t quite understand.)

“Always hated when he did that shit,” Dean goes on with a half chuckle. “My dad basically skinned me alive.”

“Why would your dad get mad at you for something Sam did?” Jess asks, but she already kind of knows the answer.

Dean gives an uncomfortable shrug. “Sammy was my responsibility. I was supposed to look out for him. Keep him safe, keep him in line.”

“But you can’t control him. You were just a kid, too.”

Dean shrugs again. “Nobody could control that kid.”

(great. great parenting, john. fucking fantastic.)

It doesn’t seem fair to her that one single person could have the power to fuck up two perfectly good people so badly. That the world, society or whatever, would just let it happen. But John was the boys’ only parent-- it’s not like anyone else was looking out for them on the daily.

“Anyway, if Ash can’t help us, I don’t know what we do, but at least it’s a start,” Dean adds.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “Yeah, I guess.”

+

They’re in and out of the Roadhouse in an hour. Ash says he’ll call if he gets anywhere, but that it isn’t likely. 

“Dammit,” Dean says, almost a growl, as he unlocks the Impala. “I’m out of ideas.”

“Yeah,” Jess sighs. 

“It don’t make a lick of sense. He’d up and leave me, sure, but you?” Dean shakes his head, ducking into his car, pulling the door shut behind him.

Jess slides into the passenger seat and pulls her door shut, too. “He wouldn’t just walk away without explaining himself to either of us,” she says. 

“Well, you, at least. Kid’s crazy about you.”

“Dean, he wouldn’t just leave you high and dry, either,” Jess says.

Dean studies his steering wheel, running his hand over it. “Well, he already has.”

“What?”

Dean twists the key, and the car purrs to life. He pulls out of his parking spot, barely glancing over his shoulder, and shifts gears to get back on the road. “Yeah. I mean, he up and left to go to Stanford. And that wasn’t the first time he ran off. I told you he used to run away.”

“Yeah,” she says. “From your dad.”

“I caused most of those problems.”

Jess blinks. “How?”

“I should’ve kept the peace better. Sam and my dad, they were always at each other’s throats. I should’ve done a better job keeping everybody on the same team.” He shrugs. “Bygones, or whatever.”

“Dean, Sam and your dad arguing wasn’t your fault,” she says, almost a little confused that she even has to tell him this.

“Not saying it was necessarily my fault. Just that I should’ve done a better job.”

She sort of stares at him.

(he’s insane, she decides. he’s like, brainwashed.)

“I think you should stop making excuses for your dad,” she finally says.

“I think you should stop acting like you understand my shit,” Dean snaps. “It ain’t your business.”

“If it affects Sam, it’s my business.”

“You’re not his keeper.”

“You aren’t either.”

Dean doesn’t respond to this. They drive in silence.

Jess stares out the window, watching the dust-colored plains of Nebraska render and fall away as Dean drives. 

(kind of an ugly state.)

It’s an empty part of it, too. They drive for miles without seeing signs of life, save for a few cows.

Jess doesn’t bother asking where Dean is driving. It doesn’t matter. It’s not like they have any leads on where Sam is, anyway.

They end up at a quiet motel in rural Iowa, tucked alone into separate rooms.

+

She hardly sleeps. She misses Sam-- the way he reaches for her in the middle of the night, clumsy hands, in his sleep, and pulls her close. The warmth on his skin. Even misses the loud horse-like way he yawns every morning when he wakes up.

And the motel bed is hard, with scratchy sheets and creaky springs. Her shoulders hurt when she finally emerges from it at the end of her sleepless night. She stretches, yawning.

(i want to break something, she thinks for the tenth or hundredth time since stepping through the doorway of the shitty motel. i hate this place, i hate it here, and i want to hear something shatter.)

She doesn’t, though, of course she doesn't. Just heads for the shower and hopes the hot water will ease her sore muscles and wake her up and help her get her head back in the game.

(finding sam.)

Once she’s showered and dried and dressed and packed, she heads to Dean’s room, three doors down, and knocks on the door. He opens it, shirtless, his bronze hair stuck up in an unruly bedhead, his green eyes bleary. She notices a third tattoo just above the waistband of his boxers, by his left hip-- a pair of uneven, faded angel wings.

(i thought he was certain angels weren't real, she comments to herself silently, trying not to stare at the poorly-inked tattoo. it almost looks like a stick and poke. she can see him, fifteen years old, freckle faced and cringing a little, laying on a couch in a basement with a party raging above him. sees a slightly older girl with purple hair and a tattoo gun leaning over him. he didn't ask for angel wings-- it's her specialty, a brand she uses to mark up anyone who will let her. they aren't angel wings to her, they're eagle wings, but they turn out a little different than usual on this smaller version of dean winchester.)

(jess isn't sure if this is intuition or if her imagination has gotten out of control, but she sees all of this in a split second.)

“Come in,” Dean mumbles, stepping aside, rubbing at the back of his neck. 

“Did I wake you up?” She asks, stepping into his room.

“Yeah, but s’fine. We gotta hit the road anyway. I’m just gonna grab a shower real quick.” Dean reaches for his phone and frowns at it for a moment before offering it to Jess. “Text from Ash last night. Read it. I’ll be right back.”

He fumbles in his duffel for jeans and a tee shirt and disappears into the bathroom. The shower comes on.

Without meaning to, her eyes land on a scuff in the wall-- the paint chipped, a small dent in the cheap drywall. Underneath it, the ice bucket, its lid several feet away.

(guess someone threw a little temper tantrum, she thinks, rolling her eyes. she picks up the ice bucket and its lid and places it on the desk, and then shoves the tv stand over a few inches to cover the scuff so he won’t get charged for it.)

Cleanup job done, she turns back to Dean’s phone, and reads Ash’s all-caps message.

HEY D. NO LEADS ON SAM BUT FOUND THAT A GIRL WHO MATCHES YOUR WHOLE THING WITH THE 1983 BIRTHDAY AND THE DEATHS AROUND THEM IS MISSING TOO. LILY BAKER, SAN DIEGO. HER GIRLFRIEND WAS FOUND DEAD WITH NO CAUSE OF DEATH A WEEK AGO AND NO ONE HAS SEEN LILY SINCE. FOOD FOR THOUGHT. COULD BE CONNECTED. 

She frowns hard. 

(first ava goes missing. now another girl who fits the pattern, and sam. where the hell are they? did the demon take them?)

The shower turns off, and a moment later Dean emerges, dressed but still damp. “Let’s hit the road. We can grab drive through breakfast and coffee.”

“Yeah,” Jess agrees, closing Dean’s phone and setting it down. “Sounds good.”

“You think Sam, Ava, and this Lily chick are in the same place?” Dean asks.

“I don’t know. It looks that way.”

“Yeah, kinda does.” Dean shakes his head a few times, stuffing yesterday’s clothes and his toiletries bag into his duffel before zipping it shut. He pockets his cell phone, and the two of them go to turn their motel keys in before getting into the Impala.

It’s a rainy morning, and cold. Dean cranks the heat up in the Impala as he heads for a McDonald’s.

They eat in the parking lot without really talking to each other, and once the trash is thrown away (dean has a very serious no garbage policy in the car), they make for the nearest highway exit.

“I say we head southeast,” Dean pipes up as he hits the gas.

“What? No. We have to go to San Diego to investigate Lily’s disappearance,” Jess says.

“She’s gone. We checked out on Ava’s and learned nothing, just saw the sulfur and her flayed fiance. Lily’s is gonna be the exact same deal.”

“You don’t know that.”

“It’s the exact same M.O., Jess. There’s no point in doubling back that far. That’s like a two day drive at least.”

“Why do you think a vague southeast plan is going to do anything for us?” Jess demands.

“We look for him, but we stay fairly central. Middle of the country. That way, in case he calls, wherever he is, we can get to him before too long.” Dean nods once, his eyes hard on the road.

“That’s so fucking stupid, Dean.”

“San Diego is a waste of time.”

“You don’t know that!” She says, louder than she meant to. She fumbles for something to rip, but Dean’s no trash policy means no discarded receipts or food wrappers stuffed into the cup holders. She ends up tugging on her jacket sleeve, pulling at a loose thread. “There could be some kind of clue there. Or a friend or neighbor of Lily’s who knows something.”

“Jess, I don’t have time to investigate some girl’s disappearance when my kid brother is MIA.”

“It would help us figure out where to find him.”

“I highly fuckin’ doubt that.”

“So you’d rather just drive around the middle of nowhere hoping to see him parked at a rest stop?” She demands.

“It’s better than wasting our time doubling back. Anyway, we got Ellen and Bobby and all their people looking out for him, and arrest reports that match his description popping up on Ash’s rig. And when I talked to Ash on the phone, he said he’d keep an eye on any news about Lily’s case. We’re doing everything we can, okay? We don’t need to go break into this girl’s house just to confirm there’s nothing to find.”

“There might be something to find.”

“I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you, blondie,” Dean huffs. “Trust me.”

“No. It’s stupid not to go to San Diego.”

“It’s stupid to waste time on somebody else when Sam is in danger!”

“It has to do with Sam being in danger!” She snaps back, hot tears welling up in her eyes. She turns her face away from him and wipes at them, but more sprout up in their place, and her breathing goes ragged.

“Aw, come on, why are you crying?” He asks, half in exasperation, half in awkward concern.

“Because I’m fucking frustrated,” she says, swallowing hard, wiping at her eyes clumsily. “And I’m worried about Sam and I’m mad at you.”

“You’re mad at me? Why are you mad at me?”

“Aren’t you mad at me?” She asks, stumbling over her words a little bit.

“No,” Dean answers, his voice a little softer than normal.

(he almost sounds like sam.)

“I’m mad at you because you won’t even try looking in San Diego. If we could find information about Sam, shouldn’t we at least try?” She sniffles a little bit, wiping her face again.

“If I thought there was even a shred of possibility that we would find something helpful in San Diego, I would be U-turning right now,” Dean says. “I would do anything to find that kid. He’s all I got. He’s always been the most important thing to me. Number one priority.” Dean seems to think for a moment, eyes focused on the road ahead. “How bout this? I’ll call Bobby next time we stop and ask if he knows any hunters in California. He can put ‘em on Lily’s case.”

She nods a few times, thinking it over. “Okay,” she agrees quietly. “That sounds good.”

“Okay,” Dean agrees with a nod. “I’d offer you a tissue but uh, I don’t… have any.”

She laughs a little bit, surprising herself, wiping her face on her sleeve. “It’s fine.”

“I’m sorry I made you mad.”

“I’m sorry too. We’re both frustrated. We’re… trying to do the same thing, here. Find Sam.”

“Yeah. Absolutely.”

They drive in silence for a few minutes. Then, as if realizing something, he reaches for a Tape World shopping bag that had been at Jess’ feet. He offers it to her. She takes it, and reaches inside-- a cassette tape of her favorite album, the one she’d bought for Sam’s car when she was in California alone. She glances sideways at Dean.

“I picked up that Greenday album,” he says. “I liked it. You wanna pop it in?”

“Yeah,” she says, nodding, opening it up. “Yeah.”

He reaches for the volume knob on the radio, and the opening chords of American Idiot seep out of the car speakers.

+

They start pulling over at roadside gas stations and motels, asking if anyone has seen Sam. It’s slow-going, and clunky, and fruitless.

They do this all day, driving through Iowa and Illinois. 

It’s getting dark out. Jess leans her forehead on her hand, watching out the window. The windshield wipers swipe back and forth lazily, batting away the droplets of thin rain that fall down onto the car. A sign clicks by: Evansville, Indiana, 25 miles. Jess frowns at it, wondering how far that is from Cicero.

“Are you heading to Indiana?” She asks, trying to keep her voice light.

“What?” He asks.

She turns to look at him. Takes in his droopy eyelids. “You should let me drive.”

“What? No. In your dreams.”

“Dean, you’re falling asleep at the wheel. It's gonna be in _your_ dreams here in a second.”

“And you’re wide awake?”

“Well, yeah. I took a nap earlier,” she points out. “Come on. Just let me drive. Or stop. This is dangerous.”

“I’m not falling asleep,” he protests.

“I’m not going to hurt your special car, Dean.”

“Do you even know how to drive?” He demands.

“You’ve been in the car with me while I was driving before. I’m a very safe driver.”

“Yeah, well, baby’s precious cargo,” he insists. 

She fights the urge to roll her eyes. (his thing with this car is like, almost unhealthy.)

“Anyway, what about Indiana?”

“I asked if you were heading to Indiana.”

“No, I’m thinkin’ we stop in Nashville tonight and then ask around the city in the morning. Sammy had a thing for Nashville when we were kids so maybe he went there. Why would I go to Indiana?”

“Because you’re always going to Indiana,” she points out.

Dean frowns a little.

“Well, Sam’s probably not in Indiana. I don’t think he knows anyone there.”

“Right,” Jess says. “You gonna let me drive?”

“Absolutely not. I just need some caffeine.”

“Dean, it’s ten at night. You need sleep. You’ve been driving all day.”

They cross over into Kentucky. He doesn’t respond.

“Let me drive,” she says again a few minutes later, noticing his eyes droop again.

“No. Absolutely not. This car is my baby, Jess. My baby.”

“Hey Dean? Stop throwing a tantrum.”

Dean pats the car’s dashboard. “I ain’t letting anyone hurt you, sweetheart,” he says to it.

“Oh my god. I’m not going to hurt it. You’re really weird about this car, you know that?”

He shrugs. “She’s worth it.”

“It’s weird that you call your car a she. Are you physically attracted to it?”

(guess that isn’t necessarily a sign, though, she realizes, remembering what he’d said about ash-- seems like the guy plays for both teams.)

“Of course I’m not sexually attracted to my car. She’s my baby,” he reiterates, as if it makes any sense.

Jess can’t help but laugh a little. She rubs at her face. “Next highway exit, you take, and we find a motel. Or, you let me drive. Those are your options.”

“And what are you gonna do otherwise?”

She reaches into her purse for her pocket knife and flicks it open. “I’m gonna slash your seat.”

“You wouldn’t,” Dean gasps.

“Do you want to test that theory?”

He groans, loudly, and swings the car onto the exit ramp. “Fine. You can drive the last couple hours. We gotta make it to Nashville tonight.”

“Great,” she says cheerfully, closing the pocket knife and tossing it back into her bag.

+

They end up in one room at the Nashville motel-- the last available room. Dean crashes right away, sleeping face down with an arm hanging off the bed. She finds herself glancing at it every now and then as she tries to relax and go to sleep. She personally can’t stand having any part of her body exposed when she sleeps, even if it’s hot. But then again, a lot of the choices Dean Winchester makes don’t exactly make sense to her.

The next morning they set out on the city, stopping at every hotel or motel they find to ask about Sam, stopping at gas stations to ask if a blue Chevy Cavalier has come through. It takes them two days to hit every spot in the city, but nobody’s seen Sam.

That’s four full days since he’s been missing. Jess hasn’t gone four full days without hearing from him since they started dating.

The fifth day passes on the road.

The sixth day, in a town outside Little Rock, Arkansas, Dean’s phone rings while he’s driving.

Jess shuts off the radio as he reaches into his pocket for it and flicks it open.

“Hello,” he says lazily. “--Sam?”

A jolt of energy shocks through Jess’ body, and she almost reaches over to grab the phone out of Dean’s hand. “Sam is calling you?”

“Calm down, buddy,” Dean says, glancing at Jess with a nod. “Hey, I got your girl here, I’m gonna put you on speaker. It’s okay, buddy.” He fumbles with his phone for a moment before getting speaker on and handing it to Jess.

“I don’t know where I am,” Sam’s frantic voice comes. “I don’t remember driving here.”

“Are you okay, honey?” Jess asks, staring down at the phone as if she’ll see Sam in it.

“Yeah, I’m okay. I just-- I woke up in my car, like I was pulled over on the side of the road napping, I don’t know-- where are you guys?”

“We’re in Arkansas,” Dean answers. “Listen, Sammy, do you have gas?”

“Yeah, half a tank.”

“Okay, are you in a town or in the middle of nowhere?”

“A town. I’m at a phone booth on the side of the road.”

“So look around or ask people until you figure out where you are. We’re going down I-30 right now, heading west.”

“Sam, what’s the last thing you remember?” Jess asks.

“I was in the parking lot at Target, waiting for you to finish buying tampons.”

Dean makes a face at her, and she rolls her eyes. “Yeah, sorry, Dean, sometimes I need tampons, get over it,” she says before doing the math to figure out exactly how many days ago that was. “That was almost a week ago, Sam. That’s the absolute last thing you remember?”

“Yeah. I was standing by my car.”

“Well, buddy, you left your cell phone and Jess’ stuff on the Impala and you disappeared,” Dean says. “We’ve been looking for you ever since. We got Bobby and Ellen on it too.”

“Shit,” Sam sighs. “I’m sorry, guys. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m kind of freaking out over here.”

“It’s okay,” Dean says again. “You figured out where you are yet?”

“Uh, there’s a sign on a bar that says Texarkana Brewery.”

“Texarkana, Texas,” Dean says with a nod. “The uh, the town that dreaded sunset.”

“What?” Jess asks.

“Horror movie about a chain of murders in the 40s,” Dean explains. He wriggles his eyebrows, looking a little excited for some reason. “The phantom killer.”

“Yeah, I’m in Texas, I just saw a Texas flag,” Sam confirms.

“Good luck for once-- we’re only a couple hours away,” Dean says. “Sit tight, Sammy. Go find a motel and call us when you get there, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” he says, sounding deflated. “Hurry.”

“We will,” Jess reassures him.

“See you soon, brother. Stay safe,” Dean instructs.

“Yeah. Bye.”

Jess flips Dean’s phone shut.

“So we drive across the whole damn country, looking for the kid for a whole week, and he just calls,” Dean recounts, chuckling, shaking his head. “Could this get any weirder?”

“Yeah, I don’t know.”

(maybe ava and lily will turn up too. once we have sam back, i’ll have to call ash.)

“We gotta figure out what’s going on here,” Dean says.

“Yeah,” she says, nodding, sighing. She hadn’t realized how tense she still was. Her shoulders relax, and she leans back.

+

They make it to Texarkana in two hours, and meet Sam at the motel he’d called to tell them the name of. From there they start picking up clues, trying to retrace Sam's steps. This reveals a pattern of behavior that is utterly unlike Sam-- stealing, property damage, smoking. And then, the cherry on top of the disaster banana split. Murder.

He'd killed a hunter. When the three of them investigate the crime scene, Jess notices a framed picture on his wall of the man standing next to Asa Fox, the hunter she'd met in Sacramento. She frowns.

(poor asa. maybe i should call and let him know his friend is dead.)

(that sucks though. he wouldn’t want to hear it from some random girl he barely knows. also, uh, my boyfriend… sort of killed the friend.)

She knows it wasn’t Sam who did the murder, but also, it was Sam’s body. Which might mean something to a grieving friend. And she doesn’t want trouble. At least any more than they’re already in.

Sam is devastated when they find out about the murder. He takes another stupidly long shower that night, and Jess almost wants to tell him that if he needs alone time, he can just ask for it-- he doesn’t have to turn himself into a raisin.

And then, three days into their investigation, Jess wakes up to an empty bed, and Sam’s car is gone from the parking lot again, and his phone is sitting on the sidewalk outside the motel room.

“Son of a bitch,” Dean huffs when Jess knocks on his door to tell him.

“I know.”

“I think the kid’s gotta be possessed or something. I think it’s a demon,” Dean says.

Jess plops down on the stiff couch in Dean’s room. “Why do you say that?”

“I called Bobby to give him the skinny, and he knew of the dead hunter. He mainly went after demons,” Dean explains. “The guy was working on and off with some other hunter named Asa Fox, looking for this one red-eyed demon in particular. So I think Sammy’s gotta be possessed by one of the red-eyed demon's henchmen.”

“Not the red-eyed demon themself?” Jess asks.

Dean shakes his head, reaching for his laptop. He pulls something up before handing it to her-- it’s a still of the security cam footage they’d found of Sam killing the guy. “It’s hard to tell since it’s all fuzzy, but look at Sam’s eyes. They look black.”

“Yeah, they kind of do.” She hands the laptop back, and Dean closes it.

“What I don’t understand is, if the point was to kill that guy, why would the demon come back and possess Sam again? Isn’t its job done?”

“Maybe there’s another hit out,” Jess suggests. “Maybe the demon is looking for that Asa Fox guy.”

“Huh. Maybe.”’

“So we have to either find Sam right away, or call Asa and warn him,” Jess adds, flipping her phone open and scrolling through her contacts. 

“Wait, you have his number? You know the guy?”

She freezes a little.

(shit.)

“Please don’t tell Sam,” she says, her tone coming out more desperate than she meant. “Promise me you won’t tell Sam. I’ll explain it eventually, just… he should hear it from me.”

“Hear what from you?”

“Uh… last year when I said I was going to stay at the lakehouse for a while because I didn’t want to go on hunts until we found the yellow eyed demon… I lied,” she admits. “I went to Sacramento by myself and tried to hunt it.”

Dean’s eyes widen a little. “By yourself? Holy shit, Jess, I didn’t think you were that stupid.”

“I was desperate,” she defends, crossing her arms, her open Razr still in one hand.

“You’d barely been hunting a few months at that point. You didn’t know what the hell you were doing. I can’t believe you would be so reckless. You could’ve gotten yourself killed, you know that? And we wouldn’t have even known where to look for you if you’d gotten in trouble. Do you know what it would do to Sammy if you got killed on the job, Jess?”

(she feels guilt wash over her, covering her, every inch.)

“Well, I didn’t die,” she points out sheepishly. “I didn’t even get hurt. Can you lecture me about this later, Dean? Point is, I met Asa, and I have his number.”

Dean sighs, running a hand over his hair. “Fine. Yeah. We should warn him.”

+

The next day, Bobby calls. Sam turned up at his place, so knowing what he knew about the situation, he tested him with holy water. It burned, so he trapped Sam with a sigil, and he has him tied up in his living room.

Jess and Dean high tail it to South Dakota, getting there in ten hours instead of twelve thanks to Dean’s borderline-maniacal driving. They exercise the demon and thank Bobby and head out.

Sam will hardly talk as they drive down the highway away from Sioux Falls. Jess drives the Cavelier, tailing Dean’s Impala, and Sam leans against the window, an uncomfortable set in his brows.

“Sam, it wasn’t your fault,” she says gently. “It wasn’t you who did any of those things.”

“It was my body,” he argues quietly. “I was awake in there for part of the time, during the second possession. I watched that demon try to kill Bobby, Jess. If it had succeeded…” Sam shakes his head. “I would have never forgiven myself.”

She frowns hard, her chest tightening a little. It seems like Sam has a running list of things he will never forgive himself for. And she never quite knows how to comfort him.

+

The three of them work a djinn case and a standard-issue haunted house case. Between them, they check in on the situations with Ava Wilson and the girl named Lily Baker, but there are no updates. Ash calls to let them know Andy Gallagher has gone missing, too, with no leads. A friend of Ellen’s had looked into it-- nothing, just sulfur left behind.

Since it seems like there’s nothing they can do for Ava, Lily, and Andy, they find another case to work instead-- a supposed ghost-caused death at a college campus in Minnesota. Things get convoluted, and Sam and Dean end up at each other's throats within a few days-- so badly that Jess calls Bobby to come help her break up the fight. Once they tell him their whole frustrating tale, he tears them each a new one and explains that it’s a trickster god causing all the problems, putting them at war with each other to distract them. The four of them manage to get the trickster and put him down, and the boys awkwardly apologize to each other before leaving town.

They’re on their way to investigate another haunting, stopped in Illinois on their way to Ohio, when Sam goes missing again. Only this time, Jess goes missing with him.

She and Dean are standing around a parking lot, outside just for some fresh air and to stretch their legs, waiting for Sam to grab a coffee from the small, middle-of-nowhere roadside café they’d stopped at. Jess happens to glance up. Sees Sam talking to the lady at the counter. Then, the lights in the café flicker off.

She frowns. “Dean?”

“Yeah.”

“I think Sam--”

+

(statistics came easily for her, but it was boring. god, it was so boring. she never would have taken it if it wasn’t a general education requirement at stanford. she’d easily aced statistics 101 her first semester, and debated putting off statistics 102 until next year, but then she figured it would be best to get it over with. get it out of the way.

and she ended up being really glad she did that. because the first day, 9:24 in the morning, early for class, a tall boy with floppy hair and a plaid shirt wandered in and bashfully asked if the seat next to her was taken.

we’re matching, she’d commented as he sat down.

what?

she tugged at the collar of her denim jacket. gestured to his, which he was carrying under his arm. matching, she repeated.

oh, he exhaled, smiling a little, a rosy cast falling over his high cheekbones. ha. i guess we are matching. um, i’m sam.

jessica.

jessica? he repeated. don’t people like… call you jess?

no. not really. she’d shrugged. her parents always called her ladybug growing up, for some reason, or just bug. her other relatives and her friends just called her jessica. a few uncomfortable teachers had called her jessie once or twice when she was in elementary school, which she’d really hated. but she’d never been jess.

oh. my full name’s samuel. but i hate being called that, sam had said. my dad and my brother, they call me sammy. i kinda hate that too. that was one thing i liked about coming here. i could just be sam.

she’d smiled a little. nodded.

i’m sorry, i don’t know why i’m talking so much, sam said with an uncomfortable laugh. i don’t usually…

talk? jess had suggested.

he nodded, and laughed again. she did too, for no real reason.

maybe i’ll start going by jess, she’d commented once the laughter died down. she’d kind of liked the sound of it in his soft voice. liked the simplicity. 

yeah? well, nice to meet you, jess.

you too, sam.)

(they sat next to each other every class, and though statistics was her most boring class, she found herself looking forward to monday, wednesday, and friday mornings. she’d watch him flick a silver butterfly knife open and closed under the table as he listened. he didn’t write down notes-- he just somehow committed everything the teacher said to memory. she would have found it impressive, if she hadn’t been so distracted by everything else about him.)

(when it came time to partner up for a group project a few weeks into the semester, she’d asked him if he wanted to work together. he’d smiled. said of course. during their first study session in the library that evening, he’d asked her on a date, barely able to get the words out. she’d accepted, and almost immediately they made their relationship official, moving too fast by everyone else’s standards. and she never looked back.)

+

She wakes up on the ground, her pleasant dream slipping away. It’s dusty. Dark. 

(what the fuck. where am i?)

(i was standing next to dean. where is he? where’s sam?)

It takes a second for her head to clear up enough for her to sit up. She’s in a building that seems like it’s been abandoned for a long time, she realizes once her eyes adjust to the darkness. On the dry wooden floor. Meager early morning sun is starting to poke through dusty window panes on the far wall. It’s a store, or it used to be. Now it’s just splintered wood and dust.

She pulls herself to her feet. Reaches into her pocket for her phone. No service.

“Hello?” She calls out uneasily.

Her voice echoes through the room.

(fuck.)

Cautiously, she makes her way to the door. Lets herself out into the street.

It’s a ghost town. A narrow road lined with boarded-up buildings.

(the demon put me here, she realizes, a heavier certainty than she’s used to with her intuition. the demon took me and put me here and i’m supposed to kill someone.)

(i’m _going_ to kill someone.)

Every nerve in her body freezes over, and she pulls her jacket closer around herself, looking around.

The sun pulls the rest of the way up over the horizon as she wanders the street. Her unease swells. 

(is this even a real place? am i in hell or something?)

A footstep. There’s someone in the building she’s coming up toward, an old barber shop. Someone walking around inside. 

Her chest tightens. She pushes her hair behind her shoulders, out of her face. Uses the elastic on her wrist to tie it into a loose bun at the nape of her neck. Looks around for something to use as a weapon.

But before she can find anything, the door opens, and the person whose footsteps she’d been hearing steps outside.

“Jess,” Sam breathes, relief loosening his wide shoulders. He closes the space between them quickly, and she all but falls into his arms.

“Sam, where the hell are we?” She asks quietly, leaning into him, squeezing her eyes shut.

He strokes the back of her head. “I don’t know, babe. I just woke up in there maybe an hour ago. Last thing I knew, I was going to grab a coffee.”

“Yeah. I watched you go in the café and then the lights went out. And I was trying to tell your brother I thought I saw you disappear, but then I disappeared too, I guess.” She sighs, uneasily pulling away from the hug, and looks around the street. “Sam, this is bad. The demon put us here somehow.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I just know it.”

He nods once, frowning. “Do you have cell service?”

“No. Nothing. You?”

“Nope.”

She’s about to respond when Sam’s face changes, his eyes tracking something over her shoulder. She turns. Her eyes fall on the man Sam had been watching.

“Andy?” She calls out.

“Jess, Sam,” he says, relieved, jogging to meet up with them. “Hi. My god, I’m relieved to see you two here. This is insane. This place-- where even are we? Last thing I knew I was taking a bong hit, and then I woke up here, and I was like, okay, that bong hit must’ve been way more intense than I realized, because I’m like, hallucinating. But I’m pretty sure the weed wore off and I’m not hallucinating.”

“You’re not hallucinating,” Sam agrees, clapping Andy on the shoulder. “You seen anyone else here?”

He shakes his head. “It’s a damn ghost town.”

“Yeah, looks like,” Sam sighs.

“Andy, you’ve been missing for a little while,” Jess remembers out loud. “Do you know how long you’ve been here?”

“Yeah, just like, half an hour,” he says with a shrug. “What do you mean, I’ve been missing?”

“You’ve been missing for around two weeks,” Sam elaborates. “A friend of ours went to check it out, but nobody knew anything.”

“Damn,” Andy mutters.

“We should look around. Try to figure out where we are,” Sam suggests.

Jess and Andy are already following him, an unspoken agreement between them that he’s in charge.

+

The three of them catch sight of a bell with a tree carved into it, and Sam recognizes it, so he’s able to place them-- Cold Oak, South Dakota, a town that according to Bobby had been so haunted, everyone fled.

They run into a pale blonde girl who introduces herself as Lily Baker. Then, they run into Ava Wilson, who’s hiding out in an old schoolhouse with a guy in an army uniform. Sam and Jess confirm what they already know-- everyone is twenty-three, everyone has powers. Ava, Sam, and Jess have premonitions, Andy can control people’s minds, Lily touches people and their hearts stop, and Jake, the soldier, has superhuman strength.

“He’s building his army,” Jess says quietly after everyone shares their powers.

“What?” Jake asks. “Who is?”

“The yellow-eyed demon,” Sam explains with a sigh. “But why? What are we supposed to fight against?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t want any part of it,” Lily says, her voice hollow. “Let’s just leave.”

Sam shakes his head. “Dense forest for miles. Even when we make it to the main road, I highly doubt any cars are going to pass by.”

“So let’s start walking,” Lily insists, louder, shaky. “I just want to go home.”

“Yeah, I just want to go sit on the couch with Brady and watch a movie,” Ava sighs.

Jess’ heart jumps. She frowns hard.

(brady is dead. brady has been dead for months. she doesn’t know.)

“Well, we’re stuck here for now, so we might as well try to make it through,” Jake suggests. Sam nods. 

The group starts looking for anything to use as a weapon. But at some point Lily slips off, and the next thing Jess knows, Ava is screaming bloody murder. When Jess follows her gaze, she sees Lily hanging from a windmill.

“We need to get in contact with my brother,” Sam sighs, putting his arm around Jess, gently turning her away from the dead body. 

“Yeah,” Andy agrees, voice shaky. “Uh… I might have a way. Do you have anything of Dean’s?”

Sam frowns, reaching into his pocket. He comes out with a crumpled up receipt, which he smooths out. “Yeah. This has his signature on it. I mean--”

Jess glances at the piece of paper. It says D. HASSLEHOFF. She almost wants to laugh.

“That’ll work,” Andy says, taking it from Sam. He squeezes his eyes shut, clutching it in his hands, and inhales hard. 

“What the fuck is he doing?” Ava asks tearfully.

“Putting a vision in his head,” Andy answers, a little breathless. “I think it worked. I showed him what we’re seeing. The town, the bell. Hopefully it’s enough for him to place us.”

“Thanks,” Sam says, relieved. “That’s perfect. He’ll figure it out.”

+

The five of them-- Andy, Sam, Ava, Jake, and Jess-- hole up in one of the buildings. After walking around all day, and trying to make weapons, and Lily dying, they’re all exhausted. The idea is to take turns napping. But Jess has never been able to just fall asleep. So she knows something is wrong when she actually does.

She finds herself in her and Sam’s old apartment in Palo Alto, the smell of fresh cookies in the air, the plants on the windowsill unbroken, the shower running in the bathroom.

(what the--)

“Hello, Jessica.”

Her spine goes cold, but she turns toward the source of the voice. Her eyes fall on the yellow-eyed demon.

The cold falls away. She burns with rage.

“What the fuck are you doing with us? Why are you playing with us like toys in some creepy, convoluted game?” She demands.

He smiles, oddly serene. “Oh, Jessica. You were never meant to be a part of this.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” She snaps.

(she’d love to close her hands around his neck, but her body doesn’t feel like it quite belongs to her. she can’t quite move.)

“You were supposed to die that night,” the demon elaborates. He gestures toward the wall, where Jess had been pinned that night. Slashes one finger through the air, as if mimicking the way he’d slashed her stomach open, giving her a scar that still hasn’t completely faded. Then, he turns his palm upward, swiping it through the air, gesturing-- (you were supposed to be pulled up the wall, onto the ceiling, bleeding down onto the bed. then the apartment would burn.)

“But then Sam showed up earlier than I calculated,” the demon continues, his hand frozen in the air, his rotted yellow eyes trained on it. “And I couldn’t afford to lose Sam. So I had to change my plans. I left,” he says, “and I let you fall to the floor, and I let the cut close up, and I let you go off with your little boyfriend. You know, he was going to propose to you. He was going to visit a jewelry shop on his way home from that scholarship interview, and he was going to buy you a nice little ring, and he was going to propose to you at dinner that night. and you would’ve said yes, wouldn’t you?”

She holds her mouth shut tight, her hands trembling at her sides.

“I thought to myself, well, if this girl can survive my plans, maybe I miscalculated. Maybe I can use her,” the demon goes on, smiling a little bit more, his eyes dead. “So I paid you another visit a few nights later.”

Jess blinks. “What?”

“You were asleep, so I wouldn’t expect you to remember. Sam was asleep too. He had his arm around you. So sweet. I did the same thing to you that I did to little baby Sam all those years ago-- I parted your lips, and I slashed my arm, and I bled into your mouth.”

Her jaw falls open. Her ears go numb, and for a second, she wonders if she might faint.

“And from that day on, you’ve had remarkably powerful intuition, haven’t you?”

“I’m sorry, you fucking… made me drink your blood?” She asks. 

“I did. And it made you so strong. It made you stronger than any of the others,” he says, light from the bedside lamp glinting off his terrible eyes. “Only one of you can make it out of this town alive. And my money has been on you for a long time. The others, they’re strong, powerful-- but you have something else.” He tilts his chin upward.

(i want to strangle him so bad. i want to squeeze the life out of him. i want to hear him choking on his own blood, and i want to watch those yellow eyes go blank.)

“Rage,” he suggests. “You have so much anger in you. And a remarkable ability to keep it inside. Your capacity to hold onto your anger makes you stronger than any of the others, Jessica. I’ve taken loved ones from everyone out there, but it didn’t fuel them the way it fueled you-- they got sad. They moped. They wept.” He pushes out his lower lip in a mock pouting face. 

“But you, Jessica? Well, when I killed your parents to push you… you burned. You still burn. You ruined your entire life for revenge you can’t even seem to get. Look at you-- you’re a killer. Don’t you ever worry that hunting has been too easy for you to get the hang of? Don’t you realize you can never go back to college, can never become a physical therapist or have Sam’s babies while he works as a tax lawyer to afford your nice big house in the suburbs?” He smirks. “That’s why you’re my favorite. That’s why you’re going to win. You have destroyed yourself, and you did it all for me.”

“Fuck you,” she spits without meaning to. Her voice sounds tight and loose at the same time, animalistic, like it’s edging away from her control. “I’m going to kill you. I’m going to end you forever, you motherfucker.”

“There it is,” he says, that serene smile painting itself back over his face. “Good luck, Jessica. I’m rooting for you.”

+

She snaps awake, gasping for air. Sam is next to her, similarly uneasy. He rubs at his face.

“Are you okay?” She asks him.

“Me? I’m… yeah, I’m fine, I just…” He shakes his head. “Are you okay?”

She scratches at her palm, hard, to clear her mind. “I’m fine.”

“I just… had a dream where I was in my old house in Kansas, talking to the demon.”

“Me too, Sam,” she says quietly. “I was in our apartment in Palo Alto.”

His eyebrows push upward. “What?” 

Andy is slumped against the wall a few feet away, still asleep. Jake stomps back into the room.

“Ava is missing,” he says gravely.

+

They wake Andy up and start looking for Ava. 

And they find her. 

“Hi, guys,” she says with a grin that makes Jess uncomfortable. 

(i wonder if sam has his pocket knife. i don’t have anything.)

“Ava,” Sam says, talking to her like you’d talk to a growling dog-- “why did you leave?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I just wanted some air.” She grins wider. Takes a step toward Andy.

“I mean, there was like, air in the room we were in,” Andy suggests.

“That’s so funny,” she says brightly. She takes a few steps toward Andy.

Before Jess knows what’s going on, Andy crumbles to the floor.

“Why did you-- holy shit, you snapped his neck,” Sam exclaims, reaching for Jess, pushing himself between her and Ava. Jess doesn’t protest. Lets herself be protected.

“We need to stop dicking around,” Ava says. “We need to stop fighting who we are. We’re special.”

“Ava, just calm down,” Jake instructs.

“Only one of us can get out of here,” Ava says. “I know it. You all know it. He just explained it to you, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he did,” Jake confirms.

“Ava, that doesn’t mean shit,” Sam pleads. “We don’t need to hurt each other.”

“Yeah, we need to work together,” Jess agrees. 

“Oh, you wanna play kumbaya? You wanna build a fire and roast marshmallows? Well, I don’t.”

Ava takes a step toward Sam. 

And before Jess can even react, Jake has driven the long knife he’d found into her chest, killing her almost instantly.

Jess grabs Sam’s arm, her heart on fire, her mind stuttering. 

“She was gonna kill you,” Jake says emotionlessly as he lets Ava’s body fall to the floor with Andy’s.

“Yeah,” Sam stammers. “Yeah, she was, I… uh, thanks. I mean, now that she’s… gone… we can just leave. Right? We can just walk outta here.”

Clumsily, Sam turns to face Jess. Takes her hand. Meets her eyes for a second.

(it’s okay. we’re going to get out of here. we can make it. stay calm.)

She gives him a nod, and they push past Jake, back into the dusty outside air, fully dark with nightfall.

“Listen,” Jake says from behind them. “I like you guys. I really do.”

“Jake, we just need to get out of this town, it’s making us all crazy,” Sam warns. He keeps walking, pulling Jess along with him.

“You know Ava was right. Only one of us,” Jake says.

Jess clenches her jaw hard for a second before talking. “It doesn’t have to be like that, Jake. We just have to kill the demon. I know you’re a reasonable guy. Listen to yourself.”

“Only one of us can get out,” Jake says again. “And it’s not like you two lovebirds are going to be able to kill each other. So it has to be me.”

Her stomach drops.

Sam stops walking. Turns around. The knife is still in Jake’s hands, red with Ava’s blood.

“Jess, I’m gonna talk him down, give us a little space,” he instructs her quietly. 

She does what he says, wordlessly, too tense to think anything different.

“Oh, so him first?” Jake asks flatly. “That works for me.”

“No, Jake, we don’t have to hurt each other,” Sam says cautiously. “We really, really don’t.”

A car. There’s a car coming. Jess looks over her shoulder just in time to see it turn onto the street. Dean’s Impala, with Bobby in the passenger seat.

Relief floods her. She takes a few steps toward it.

“Let’s just put our weapons down,” Sam suggests. She glances back toward him, and watches him dig his butterfly knife out of his pocket. He slowly leans down, setting it in the dust at his feet. “Okay? I’m not gonna hurt you, you’re not gonna hurt me.”

“Sammy!” Dean calls, getting out of his parked car, slamming the door shut behind himself. Bobby follows.

Jess turns around just in time to watch Jake drive his knife into Sam’s chest.

(--------------------------------)

She sees red.

She doesn’t think. Doesn’t feel. Vaguely aware of Dean screaming Sam’s name, running to his brother, holding onto him, she closes the space between her and Jake. She stops to pick up Sam’s butterfly knife on the way. And, somehow easily overpowering this army soldier with superhuman strength, she drives the knife into his heart.

She pulls it out. Slams it back in, watching the blood pool out of the first wound, the color of a dried up rose. Again. Again. Again. He falls to the ground, and she follows him, tackling him, stabbing him in the chest with the short knife again, again, again.

A hand closes around her shoulder. “Jessica.”

Again. Again.

“Jessica,” Bobby says again, louder. He hauls her off Jake. “He’s already dead.”

Bobby is right. She looks down at his spent corpse, her chest heaving, her hand shaking hard around the handle of Sam’s knife.

(she feels no remorse.)

She turns her gaze from the dead man to the knife in her hand, dripping with his deathly red blood.

“Close the knife, Jess,” Bobby says quietly.

She does it. Slips it into her pocket.

He pats her shoulder a couple times. Lets go of her.

(he’s dead. sam’s dead. sam is dead. sam is dead. i let sam die. sam is dead he’s dead he’s dead he’s dead he)

+

He doesn’t look peaceful, she thinks as she sits next to his body, staring at him. He just looks dead.

Dean is on the other side of Sam’s body, mirroring her quiet hurt with his own. Rain taps against the half-rotten roof of the abandoned house they’d dragged Sam’s body to. 

(this is the boy who she used to buy houseplants with on sunday afternoons, hand in hand, wandering the stanford greenhouse club’s plant sales, coming away with an armful, finding thrift shop pots to put them in. this is the boy she used to laugh with over diner fries on late nights. this is the boy who had been so nervous when he first asked her on a date, whose face lit up like a lunar eclipse when she’d said yes. the only boy whose hands jessica had ever felt over her body. the only boy she’d ever loved.)

(the boy she taught how to swim.)

She doesn’t want to touch his hand. She knows it’ll be freezing cold. That it won’t feel right. So she reaches for Dean’s hand instead, not really expecting him to give it to her. But he does. It’s smaller than Sam’s, not quite as warm, and a little rougher, his silver ring cold against her skin-- but it’ll do for now.

The door to the house creaks open, and she senses Bobby’s presence. He walks in. Stops, surveying them.

“You kids really oughta eat something,” he comments. 

Dean shakes his head, closing his eyes hard, his jaw set tight. Jess ignores Bobby all together. 

“And I hate to say it. I really do, but don’t you think we should bury Sam?” He asks gently.

Her chest turns inside out. Ears numb, she lets go of Dean’s hand, and covers her face. She hasn’t shed a single tear. She still can’t.

“Bobby, can you just leave us alone, please?” Dean asks, his voice riding a strange line between broken and angry.

“Alright,” Bobby says quietly. “Listen, it’s only an hour to Sioux Falls, okay? I’m going to head home. My door is wide open for you two. Or call me if you need anything at all.”

Neither of them respond. Jess moves her hands just in time to see Bobby come over, squeeze Dean’s shoulder, and leave. She looks back down at Sam.

(he’d looked so embarrassed that day at the lake, admitting to jess that he didn’t know how to swim. she’d been kind of baffled. he never had the opportunity before? how does someone make it to nineteen without having the opportunity? but now, two years deep in the winchester boys’ world, she gets it. of course sam never would have had the chance to learn how to swim. his dad wouldn’t have gotten him swim lessons or taken him to a public pool or a lake. there were monsters to hunt, demons to obsess over, dead wives to avenge-- who has time for swimming?)

Jess’ phone rings in her pocket, and she flinches hard. Fumbles to take it out.

“It’s my aunt,” she mumbles to Dean. “I’ll be right back.”

She walks outside, feet uncertain, balance limp, like she’s drunk. She answers the call. “Hi, Aunt Sandy.”

“Jessica, honey, I just wanted to call and check in on you. It’s been so long since I’ve heard from you. Your uncle and I are starting to worry.”

“Oh. I emailed you a while ago.”

“It’s been months,” Sandra insists. “When are you going back to Stanford for grad school? I was thinking maybe you could rent out the lakehouse to pay for it. Keep yourself out of debt.”

“I don’t know.”

“You sound terrible, sweetheart.”

“I have a cold,” Jess lies.

(leave me alone, she wants to scream at her well-meaning and oblivious aunt. leave me alone!)

“You do? Are you still on the road with your boyfriend?”

“Yes,” she answers.

“If you’re sick, you shouldn’t be travelling around.”

Annoyed, furious with her aunt’s timing, she kicks at a rock in the dust at her feet. “I’m at a hotel. Sam is going out to get me medicine right now.”

“You should have him get you soup.”

“Yeah, maybe. Listen, Sandy, I have to go. I need to lay down. Because I’m sick.”

“Of course, sweetheart. Will you please call me and let me know when you decide when to go back for grad school? I can help you set up the rentals on the lakehouse and everything.”

“I’ll let you know. Bye.”

She hangs up, shoving her phone in her pocket, hands fisting angrily. She takes a moment to pull some air into her lungs before going back inside. She’d left the door open in her haze.

Dean is talking. Without really meaning to, or thinking about it, she stops in the doorway. Listens in.

“You know, when we were little, you couldn't have been more than five,” he says quietly. “You had just started asking questions. ‘How come we didn't have a mom?', ‘Why do we always have to move around?', ‘Where did Dad go?' when he'd take off for days at a time. I remember I begged you, ‘quit asking, Sammy. You don't want to know.' I just wanted you to be a kid. Just for a little while longer. I always tried to protect you. Keep you safe.” 

Dean’s voice breaks. From behind him, she watches him rub his eyes. When he speaks again, it’s through an avalanche of tears. “Dad didn't even have to tell me. It's just always been my responsibility, you know? It's like I had one job. I had one job, and I screwed it up. I blew it, and for that, I'm sorry. I guess that's what I do. I let down the people I love. You know, I let Dad down, and now I guess, I'm just supposed to let you down, too. How can I? How am I supposed to live with that, Sammy?” 

His head dips forward, and he sobs into his hands, broken, desperate. He sounds like a kid.

Jess’ eyes go hot. The first tears well up, and the anger that had been burning her up starts to subside into grief.

It rains down her face, drenching her. She reaches for the wall for support.

Dean hears her. He turns around, and they face each other for a moment, both wrecked by their own tears. 

“Jess,” he says quietly. “I have a plan. I had to wait for Bobby to leave ‘cause he’d try to stop me. But you aren’t gonna stop me, right?”

(if it’s for sam? no. of course i wouldn’t.)

She sniffles a little, wiping her face on her sleeve before answering. “What’s your plan, Dean?”

+

(how long is this going to take, jess thinks to herself maybe twenty minutes later, sitting over sam’s spent body alone.)

(and what exactly is going to happen?)

She straightens Sam’s collar. Nudges his overgrown hair out of his face. He always kept up with shaving, but he hasn’t had the chance in a few days, and it shows. He only has sparse patches of stubble, mostly dotting his jawline and above his lip, and he’s always been self-conscious of it. Always whined that Dean’s stubble grew in full and perfect by the time he was eighteen, and his was going to be ratty and thin forever. Not that he ever wanted a beard. Just that it would be nice to be able to go a couple days between shaving without it growing in all uneven and stupid.

Jess had reminded him that they’re still young. That within a few years it would probably be fuller and more even like his big brother’s. Sam wasn’t so sure.

The rain has subsided overhead, but she can still smell it. 

(there’s a word for that, she thinks numbly, looking down at sam’s body. for the smell of rain hitting dust. i used to know it. i learned it in a book or something.)

Sam gasps, sitting up, looking fervently around the room.

(it worked. oh my god. it worked.)

“Sam,” she says, a fresh crop of tears welling up-- tears of relief, this time, though. She reaches for him. He’s still cold.

“What happened?” He asks her breathlessly, hugging her back. “I feel so stiff-- where’s Dean? Where’s Jake?”

“Jake is dead,” Jess says. “Dean-- he’ll be right back.”

“He stabbed me. How did I…?”

“Bobby patched you up,” she improvises. “He had a first aid kit in his car and stuff.”

“He buried that machete in my back, though, I saw it come out the front of my chest.”

“What?” Jess asks, pulling out of the hug, looking Sam in the face. “No, it only sank in a couple inches, honey. You must remember it wrong because of the trauma.”

“I guess that makes sense,” he allows. “How did Jake die? I don’t get it.”

The door busts open jus then, and Dean’s boots hit against the spent floorboards. “Sammy?” He calls as he stomps inside. 

“Dean,” Sam says, stumbling to his feet. 

“Thank god,” Dean mumbles, closing the space between him and his brother, wrapping him in a tight hug.

“Dean,” Sam chokes. “Can’t breathe.”

“Sorry, buddy.” Dean releases him, patting his back a few times. “I’m just real glad to see you up and moving around. Looked kinda bleak for a minute there.”

“Bobby did a great job patching him up,” Jess suggests.

Dean nods several times. “Yeah. Really strong work.”

They share a glance.

(another secret.)

+

Several minutes later, the boys are arguing about the next course of action-- go to the Roadhouse, go to Bobby’s-- when Jess notices someone lurking out the window.

“No, Sammy, I talked to Ash on the phone just a little bit ago. He has an idea about something but we’ll deal with that later. And Bobby had to go off on a last-minute hunt.”

She frowns. Stands up. Wanders over. The boys don’t seem to notice, too wrapped up in their dumb brother argument. 

It’s the demon.

(he’s here for me.)

Without saying anything, she leaves the house, pulling the door shut behind her. 

He grins when he sees her, that weird smile, rancidly serene, his eyes absolutely dead. It occurs to her that this man she’s seeing, this body-- it isn’t his. It’s some innocent person who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, whose loss of agency is just a byproduct of the demon’s plans. Just some average middle-aged man from Wisconsin or Florida or Ohio or Maine or Oregon.

(she can hardly get herself to give a shit, though, somehow.)

“Jessica. Well, this is it. You’re the last man standing-- or, the last woman standing. Congratulations. I told you I was rooting for you.”

(he doesn’t know sam came back.)

“What do you want?” She asks coldly.

“Just to talk.”

“So talk.”

“You know, I didn’t do this all for nothing,” he says, looking around, surveying the dusty, abandoned town in the distance. The house they’d dragged Sam to is outside town, far enough away to leech meager cell service from the next nearest tower. “It was a process of elimination. To find the strongest of the candidates. And it’s you. So now we can move on to what’s next.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Paradise,” he says, his smile widening, his yellow eyes shimmering like an oil spill. “A world where you will be royalty. Where you’ll have it all. Power. Wealth. Anything. A world you and I will build together.”

(he has the colt. and if you say yes to him, she realizes, he will give it to you.)

“What do you mean, build it?” She asks, stalling for time so she can formulate some kind of game plan.

“Well, there would be a war first, of course. Humans against demons. But it wouldn’t last long-- the humans are outmatched and unprepared. We’ve been planning this for centuries,” the demon explains. “And you’re the final piece. With you at the helm, we’ll win easily. And then we take what is ours.”

She nods a few times, looking down, trying to sell it. “I’ve lost my family, and my normal life, and now Sam,” she says, forcing her voice to break on his name. “I don’t have anything left.”

“Except your anger. And your power.”

She nods again. Wipes her eyes. “I’ll join you,” she says. “I’ll do it.”

“That’s wonderful.”

He has the colt. He takes it from his interior jacket pocket. He offers it to her.

(he can teleport away at a second’s notice. you have to take him by surprise.)

She accepts the gun. Looks it over, as if she doesn’t know what it is. She aims it, several feet to his left, as if just to try.

And then, as fast as she can, she turns its mouth toward the demon. And she fires it.

Samuel Colt’s bullet buries itself in the demon’s chest. His mouth falls open, and the grimey light leaves his eyes, and black smoke shoves out of his mouth and dissipates into nothing.

She stands there, gun shaking in her hand, the spent demon crumbled to the ground, his vessel dead along with him. She looks from the gun to the demon. Then back to the gun.

(is that it? did i do it? is it over?)

“Jess?” Dean’s voice comes.

“Jess, what’s going on?” Sam’s follows it, and the boys pour out of the house, running up to her.

“Holy shit,” Dean breathes once he sees what’s going on. “Holy-- is that the colt? Did you just kill the demon?”

She nods uneasily, still looking down at the shaky gun.

“It’s dead?” Sam asks breathlessly, his hand settling on her back.

“Yeah,” she says. “I… I watched it die. I killed it.”

“That was for our parents, you evil son of a bitch,” Dean growls, shoving at the dead body. “Rot in hell.”

“It just gave you the colt?” Sam asks.

“Yeah,” she confirms. “I lied to him so he’d give it to me.”

Blinking, she looks up at Sam.

His face is ashy, his lips pale, his eyes sunken and dull. And when she reaches for his hand, it’s still cold, his fingers still a little stiff.

He still looks dead.


	5. first half of season three

SEASON THREE.

None of them really sure what else to do, Sam, Jess, and Dean double back to pick up Sam’s car from where they’d left it, and they head up to Sioux Falls. The Colt is out of bullets now, and if anyone can figure out how to make more, it’s Bobby.

And they manage to keep up with the lie about Sam’s death for all of two days.

Jess could have kept it quiet forever, she thinks, but Sam starts poking holes in their story thanks to Bobby’s reaction upon seeing him at the door-- alive, but looking dead. And Sam starts asking questions. Which Dean and Jess dodge for a little while. But then, standing around outside between the Impala and the Cav, about to leave Bobby’s house, Dean folds.

“Did you sell your soul for me, Dean? Like Dad did for you?” Sam demands. “Was I dead?”

“Oh, come on,” Dean dismisses.

“Tell me the truth,” Sam insists.

Jess reaches for the passenger side of Sam’s car. If they can get alone, she can talk Sam down. Feed him enough lies to shut him up. And then later on, she can regroup with Dean alone, and figure out how to handle things. “Hey, guys, can we--”

But Sam cuts Jess off. “Dean, tell me the truth.”

(dammit, dean.)

Dean just sort of laughs, uneasy, rubbing at the back of his neck and looking away.

“How long do you have?” Sam asks quietly.

Dean kicks at the pavement idly, avoiding his brother’s dull eyes. When he speaks, his voice has a weird lightness to it. “One year.”

(one-- _no._ )

(no no no no no no. one year. no.)

“One year?” Jess demands. Her chest tightens up, and she reaches for Sam on instinct. She doesn’t quite catch his hand, though, she just sort of grazes it. “Dean, you said it would be ten.”

He shrugs sheepishly. “I had to take what I could get, blondie. This was the only offer on the table.”

“Jess… you knew about this?” There’s betrayal in Sam’s hazel eyes, and shock, and tears. She looks away.

(not just because of the guilt. she’s been avoiding his eyes ever since he woke back up. they just don’t look right-- they don’t reflect light the way they’re supposed to, and the color isn’t as vibrant as it should be, and the whites are almost grey.)

“We didn’t know what else to do, Sam.” She reaches for him again. He pulls away.

“How could you do this, Dean? And Jess-- how could you let him?”

“You were dead,” Jess says, trying not to cry. 

“You shouldn’t have done this, Dean.”

“Don't get mad at me,” Dean pleads, tears running down his face. “Don't you do that. I had to. I had to look out for you. That's my job.”

Frowning hard, her chest tight, Jess looks from the older Winchester brother to the younger one. Sam pushes his hair back, his eyes leaking, his face pale.

(he still looks dead. i can’t even tell if he’s starting to look better. is he just going to look dead for the rest of his life?)

The thought sends a chill down her spine.

“Sammy, I know you’re mad,” Dean says, impatiently wiping at the tears on his face. “And you can be mad at me. You can be mad at me forever if you want. I’m okay with that. I’d do it again.”

“Dean…” Sam shakes his head. “I mean, you sacrifice everything for me. Don't you think I'd do the same for you? You're my big brother. There's _nothing_ I wouldn't do for you.”

“I know, Sammy,” Dean says quietly. “But it’s okay.”

Sam shakes his head several times. “I don't care what it takes, I'm gonna get you out of this.” He turns to Jess, desperation mingling with the tears in his unsettlingly dull eyes. “Right? We’re going to figure this out.”

She nods. Tries to touch him again-- this time, he doesn’t pull away, he lets her take his hand. She kisses it. His skin is still cold. “Yeah. We’ll figure it out.”

Dean chuckles a little, albeit insincerely. “Well, I’m touched, guys. But for now, if my days are numbered, I’m gonna go get laid. So I’ll catch up with you two in a couple days.”

+

Jess drives. Figuring she and Sam could both use a break and some nice scenery, she heads for Colorado, and finds a medium-nice hotel in the first cute town they pass through. 

(anyway, she has a feeling dean went to the roadhouse, so this way she and sam won’t be too far away when he wants to meet back up.)

“This is nice,” Sam comments as they unlock their room and wander in. “Wow. How much does this even cost?”

Jess thinks about the scam credit card she’d quietly had Dean set her up with yesterday on Bobby’s wifi. “Not too much. Anyway, we won’t be here too long.”

(the room really is nice. the bed has a fluffy duvet on it, and four pillows, instead of the usual two pillows and the sheet/blanket/nasty quilt combo found at most motels. and the tv is a big flat screen, and the bathroom has updated appliances, and jess doesn’t see a single stain anywhere.)

“I have to tell you, honey, I’m beat,” Sam sighs, sitting down on the bed. “I guess we’ve been through a lot this past week.”

“Yeah,” she agrees, sitting next to him, wrapping her arms around him. He slides his arm around her shoulders too, and kisses her temple. 

“Hey, you know what’s kind of funny?” Sam comments a few moments later, after an easy silence.

“Huh?”

“When my brother said he was going to go get laid, he seemed to have a location in mind. And then we were driving behind him for a while, until he took the exit toward Nebraska.”

“Oh,” Jess says, shrugging. “Yeah, that is kinda funny. He must know someone in Nebraska.”

“You think he’s going to the Roadhouse?”

“Could be. A lot of hunters come through there. Or maybe he was heading down to Kansas or Texas or something.”

“Huh. Weird.”

“Anyway,” she says, “let’s do normal people things. Let’s order room service and watch a movie and get our money’s worth out of that huge fancy shower.”

“Okay,” Sam says, laughing a little bit. “That sounds like a plan to me.”

(i think we’ve earned a break.)

+

They lay low in Colorado for three days. Catch up on sleep. By the end of it, Jess feels better about Sam’s state-- his cheeks are starting to pull a little more color, and his eyes are starting to catch the light like they’re supposed to. His lips are still kind of purple and he still has dark bags under his eyes, but he doesn’t look quite so much like a walking corpse anymore. And his skin still isn’t as warm as usual-- he runs hot-- but it doesn’t feel so cold to the touch as it did in the beginning. He looks a little more like someone who is just getting over a nasty illness. 

(he doesn’t seem to notice he still looks dead, jess thinks to herself. i wonder if dean notices. dean has to notice. i mean, he looks better, but he still looks bad, jess thinks as they drive off.)

They meet up with Dean near Topeka, Kansas, and over lunch he tells them the details of a new case: mysterious deaths in North Carolina. Two weeks later that job is done, and they head to a haunting in Maryland, which they solve in a record day and a half.

“You guys do your thing,” Dean says as they head to the parking lot of their Maryland motel. “I gotta hit up Indiana.”

“Dean, what are you always doing in Indiana?”

Dean shrugs, brushing aside his brother’s question. “Doesn’t matter, does it? Just got a friend there. I’ll catch up with you guys in a week, okay?”

(usually, jess would know something about indiana. but this time, the intuition never comes. she doesn’t glean anything new about cicero or appendix surgery or whoever lisa is.)

(maybe the intuition is gone, she thinks, frowning a little bit.)

By the time she gets out of her own head, Dean is tucked into the Impala, zooming out of the parking lot.

“I started looking some stuff up online,” Sam comments as they get into his Cavelier. “About demon deals and lore and stuff.”

“Yeah?” Jess buckles her seatbelt.

“Yeah. I’m not getting anywhere yet, but I have eleven more months, right? There’s time.”

“Of course,” she agrees with a nod. “We’ll figure it out. I’ll start researching too. Hey, let’s just do that while we wait for Dean to finish up in Indiana, okay? Let’s just go to the next biggest city and hole up in their library.”

He smiles a little bit. “Yeah. Okay. That’s probably… Baltimore or Philadelphia.”

She scrunches her nose up. “Let’s go to Philadelphia. Baltimore is so disgusting.”

“You’ve been there?” He asks with a laugh.

“Yeah, I went on this educational student trip freshman year of high school. It sucks. The hotel we stayed at had an ant infestation, and I’ve never seen so much litter in my entire life.”

“Okay, Philly it is,” he confirms, pulling out of the parking lot.

+

They make it to Philadelphia in a couple hours, and spend a couple more hours at the library before going to a vegan place Sam was excited about for dinner. No leads at the library, but they plan to head back the next day after breakfast.

They drive around until they find a motel. Sam parks the car outside the front office, but before they can get out, his cell phone rings.

He frowns, reaching for it. “It’s my brother.” He hits a button. “Hey, Dean. You’re on speaker.”

“Sam, Jess, you gotta get to Indiana,” Dean’s voice comes, more frantic than Jess has ever heard it, hiccup-y, like he can hardly get the words out.

Jess frowns hard. “Are you okay, Dean?”

“Me? I’m fine. Yeah. Whatever. But I need back-up. There’s a case. Hurry. Like, start driving right now. Cicero, Indiana. It’s half an hour north of Indianapolis.”

“Okay, okay,” Sam says. He glances to Jess-- she nods, so he turns his car back on and pulls out of the spot. “What’s the case?”

“I don’t know. Some kind of monster. Something to do with kids. Are you guys coming?” Dean pleads.

“Yeah, we’re turning around right now, leaving Philly,” Sam confirms, pulling out of the motel parking lot, back onto the street.

“Dean, if it’s just a monster, why are you so freaked out?” Jess asks, her heart pounding hard. She really does not like his tone. She’s never heard him talk like this before, and it makes her almost feel sick.

“Because,” Dean says, tone slipping more toward dread now. “Because it’s going after kids. And it’s in Cicero.”

“Okay,” Sam says slowly, confusion written over his face.

Dean takes a deep breath. “And my son lives in Cicero.”

Jess feels her eyes go wide.

(son. oh my god.)

(that actually makes sense though. that’s why he’s always slipping off. lisa must be the kid’s mom.)

(holy shit. holy shit dean has a son and i just let him agree to cut his life off at thirty.)

Sam all but slams on the brakes, clumsily pulling the car over on the side of the thin residential street. “I’m sorry, what did you just say?”

“Yeah, I have a kid, okay?” Dean says hurriedly.

“What the fuck, Dean? How old is he? Who-- how?” Sam gestures vaguely as he stumbles over the question.

“I know you’re a virgin, Sammy, but do I really have to explain to you how babies are made?”

Sam rolls his eyes, huffing a little bit. “Dean, how old is he?”

“He’s turning eight in two days. That’s why I came over here. His name’s Ben. Now will you please haul ass to Cicero so he doesn’t get eaten by a fucking monster, Sam?” Dean asks impatiently. “It’s taking everything I got to keep his mom distracted and keep him under my thumb, I can’t hunt the thing singlehandedly too. I tried to talk Lisa into taking him out of town, but she won’t ‘cause his birthday party is the day after tomorrow, and I can’t tell her the truth.”

“Yeah, we’re coming,” Jess confirms. 

“Why did you keep it a secret for eight years that you have a kid?” Sam demands.

“Look, _you_ were a kid when he was born, okay? I was trying to keep you and Dad from murdering each other. You were sixteen. You and Dad needed me. I just snuck away to visit him when I could,” Dean explains.

“Well, I’m not a kid anymore, Dean.”

“Yeah, yeah. Hurry up, okay? I gotta go.” He hangs up.

Sam just sits there, looking at his phone, shaking his head.

“That’s crazy,” Jess finally offers.

(she’s trying to picture dean as a dad, trying to picture him holding a baby or changing a diaper or playing legos with a kid, but she comes up blank.)

“Yeah.” Sam half-chuckles, half-scoffs. “I mean, what the fuck? He’s had a kid all this time? And he never told me? I mean… did our dad even know?”

“Kinda doesn’t sound like it,” Jess says. 

Sam shakes his head again, but he shifts the car back into gear, and pulls back into the street. “Alright. Whatever. I guess I’m gonna go meet my nephew.”

+

Sam and Jess drive for eight hours straight, only stopping to switch drivers. By the time they make it to Lisa’s house in Cicero, it’s nearly two in the morning.

“I can’t believe Dean has a kid,” Sam comments for at least the hundredth time as Jess street parks in front of the house. “Better yet, I can’t believe Dean has a kid who he actually is involved with. I never would have thought he’d be the type.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Jess agres for the hundredth time. “I feel like we shouldn’t knock. I mean, we shouldn’t wake them up.”

“Yeah, I’ll call my brother, he’s probably awake.” Sam reaches for his phone, unbuckling his seatbelt as he makes the call-- which Dean picks up right away. “Hey, man. We’re outside. Yeah. Okay.”

“Is he coming?”

Sam nods, yawning into his hand. In the sparse moonlight, he looks worse than usual. He almost looks as bad as he did when he first woke up in that abandoned house outside of Cold Oak, all purple and waxy and wrong. 

“That’s a pretty big house for a single mom,” Jess comments, trying to notice anything other than how bad Sam’s face looks. It’s two stories, with a fence going out several feet on either side-- big back yard, from the looks of it. It looks bigger than the house Jess had grown up in, which she’d always known was considered ‘nice’.

“Yeah. Kind of is.” Sam shrugs.

Dean emerges from the front door a moment later, dressed in jeans and a henley, barefoot. He meets them in the front yard.

“Thanks for coming,” he says, almost embarrassed.

“Of course. What’s the deal, man?” Sam asks.

“I’ll give you the low-down in the morning after Lisa goes to work and Ben gets to school. For now, you guys probably wanna get some sleep. Lisa set the guest room up for you.”

Jess nods, slinging her duffel onto her shoulder. “Okay. Cool.”

“And… guys?” Dean hesitates before opening the front door, glancing back over his shoulder at them. “Don’t mention anything supernatural at all. They don’t know what I do for work. They think you guys just came to town for Ben’s birthday party on Saturday.”

(we should grab a present for him tomorrow while he’s at school, jess thinks to herself.)

“Of course, Dean, we aren’t stupid,” Sam huffs. “Can we go to sleep, now?”

+

A few hours later they wake up to the smell of scrambled eggs and bacon, get dressed, and a little awkwardly, make their way downstairs to the kitchen. 

To Jess’ absolute shock, Dean is the one cooking. He turns around and waves at them with a spatula. “Hey, hope you guys’re hungry. Sit down.”

“Are they awake?” A woman’s voice comes from the next room. She wanders in, offering them a bright white smile. The first thing Jess notices after her blinding teeth is that she’s gorgeous-- thich auburn hair, big brown eyes, bright olive skin. She crosses the room to greet them each with a hug. “I’m so happy I finally get to meet you! Dean has told me so much about you guys. Thanks for coming for Ben’s party, we really appreciate it.”

“Of course,” Jess says, returning the smile, as if she didn’t just find out about Ben less than twenty-four hours ago. “Thanks for having us, Lisa. Your house is beautiful.”

“Uh, yeah,” Sam says awkwardly. “I’m glad I get to finally meet you too, uh, Lisa. Is Ben awake?”

“He’s getting dressed for school, he’ll be right down. This is going to be such a fun surprise, he’s always wanted to meet you,” Lisa says to Sam. “Coffee?”

“Yeah, yes please.”

She reaches for the cupboard, setting her hand on Dean’s shoulder as she does, almost affectionately. 

(are they, like… together? is this a whole thing? does he come here a few weeks out of the year and like… play house?)

Lisa gets a few cups and fills them each from the coffee pot. “Here you go.”

“Wanna call the kid? Food’s ready,” Dean comments, turning the stove off.

Lisa nods and heads off toward the stairs.

“Dude, this is freaky,” Sam whisper-yells at his brother. “Blink twice if you need help.”

Dean rolls his eyes, taking a few plates out of the cupboard. “What’s freaky?”

“You’re all domesticated. Are you okay? Does this Lisa girl poison you?”

“Shut up, Sam,” Jess instructs, jabbing him in the ribs. 

“Yeah, shut up, Sam,” Dean agrees. “Or I’m gonna accidentally drop your breakfast on the floor.”

Lisa and Ben wander back into the kitchen a moment later. Ben looks so much like Dean, it’s almost shocking-- he has Dean’s big eyes, only his are brown, not green, and Dean’s exact same sprinkling of freckles. Ben’s hair is darker, more like the color of his mom’s, but it’s the same exact cut as Dean’s. Which is almost funny.

“Hey, buddy, I got a surprise for you,” Dean says, crossing the room, setting his hand on Ben’s shoulder. “I want you to meet your Uncle Sammy and Aunt Jess. They came for your birthday.”

“Really? That’s awesome!” Ben exclaims, all but running over to Sam and Jess. “Hi! You’re so tall.”

Jess laughs a little, glancing to Sam, who has a weird look on his still-pale face. He blinks, and forces a grin before leaning down so he’s closer to his nephew’s small-for-his-age height. “Yeah. Ha. I’m six feet, four inches tall,” he says. “You might be that tall someday. Winchester… genes… and all. Ten years, maybe, and you’ll even be taller than me.”

(doing really good, sam, jess teases in her head.)

“Awesome,” Ben says brightly.

“You gotta eat up, kiddo, school’s soon,” Dean points out, setting the table and putting the pans of bacon and eggs down, as well as a bunch of toast he takes out of the oven.

“You made bacon, Dad? Hell yeah!”

“Benjamin Isaac Braeden, watch your mouth,” Lisa scolds, but Dean just laughs.

(okay, hearing some kid call dean ‘dad’ is really fucking bizarre.)

The five of them sit down and eat a quick breakfast. Afterwards, Lisa hurries out of the house with Ben, apologizing about having to rush off like this, promising they’ll all get to know each other over a nice dinner tonight. 

Once they’re gone, Dean starts cleaning up the breakfast stuff like it’s just normal.

“Cute kid,” Sam comments a little stiffly, going to help his brother with the dishes.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, he’s a cool guy. And he’s gonna be in serious fuckin’ danger if we don’t get this case figured out.”

“Okay, so tell us what you know,” Jess says.

“When I showed up the other day, Lisa’s friend and her daughter were over,” Dean begins. “The kids were playing, the moms were complaining about the PTA over a bottle of white wine, whatever. But I overheard Lisa’s friend saying something weird about her daughter.”

“What was it?” Sam asks, sliding a pair of plates into the open dishwasher.

“The mom was saying that the daughter, Katie, was at her ex-husband’s place a few days back, and she called wanting to be picked up. Said she didn’t feel safe at her dad’s, which is apparently unusual for this kid. So the mom picked her up and all, and a few hours later, the dad was dead. Sliced in half with his own circle saw.”

“That’s definitely weird,” Jess allows.

“Yeah. And then ever since then, Katie’s been acting strange. Like, acting creepy. I went to go say hi to Ben and he was alone. So I asked him why he wasn’t playing with his friend, and he was like, she just wanted to watch TV. But the TV wasn’t on. She was just sitting in front of it, blank, and Ben was playing by himself,” Dean explains. “I knew something was up.”

Sam blinks. “This girl just lost her dad really suddenly, Dean. Maybe she’s just traumatized.”

Dean shakes his head. “No, Sammy, there was something up. I’m telling you, it’s a case.”

“If Ben could be in danger, we should at least look into it,” Jess says, mostly to Sam, who sighs and nods.

“I gotta keep my cover here. Keep my eyes on my kid just in case. I can work it with you until two-thirty, but I promised to pick him up from school, so you guys are gonna be on your own after that.”

Jess nods. “We can handle that.”

“Oh, until six, anyway. Lisa wants to have that dinner.”

Sam almost laughs a little bit.

“What, dude?” Dean demands.

“You’re whipped,” Sam suggests. “You’re whipped by a woman you aren’t even seeing most of the time.”

“Ugh, Sam.” Jess rolls her eyes.

“I am not whipped,” Dean argues. “You’re the one who’s whipped.”

“I’m going to whip both of you,” Jess suggests.

“I’m not whipped, I’m in love,” Sam says, closing the dishwasher before wandering back to the kitchen island and sliding his arm around Jess’ shoulders. She sort of squirms away, playfully pushing him aside as punishment for his annoying Dean Winchester-flavored macho man garbage. “There’s a difference. Are you in love with Lisa?” Sam goes on.

Dean makes a face. “Dude, what are you even talking about?”

“No, but seriously, do you like… are you sleeping in her bed with her? Are you guys an item?” Sam pushes.

Dean shrugs. “When I’m here, I’m here, and we have some side perks. When I’m not, I’m not, and she only calls if it’s about the kid. Lisa likes doing the whole single mom thing so she doesn’t really date. She doesn’t care that I hook up with people on the side. The set-up works for us.”

“That’s insane, Dean.”

Dean dismisses Sam’s jab with a shrug. “Anyway, look, I gotta actually do stuff with Ben while I’m here, okay? Last time I visited was because his appendix burst and he had to get rushed to the hospital so he was barely awake for most of it. I owe him some dad stuff. Seriously, can you guys deal with this on your own?”

“Of course,” Jess says with a nod. (appendix surgery. i knew it.)

(also, how does dean know about ‘dad stuff’? considering what his dad was like? that’s kind of impressive, actually.)

“We should start with Lisa’s friend with the daughter,” Sam says, finishing his coffee. “Do you have her address, Dean?”

“No, wait, we can’t just show up at her house with fake police badges if we’re going to see her at Ben’s birthday party tomorrow,” Jess points out. “Do you think she and her daughter will be there?”

Dean nods. “Good thinking. I’m sure they will. Lisa goes all out with the birthday parties-- I swear she invites the whole town.”

“Perfect. We can poke around the situation at the party, then.”

Sam nods his agreement. “Okay, so for now, what?”

“Figure out if there’ve been any other mysterious deaths in Cicero, I guess,” Dean suggests. 

“Okay,” Jess says, nodding. “So let’s get out there.”

+

The three of them do some digging, and they find four other accidents over the past two weeks-- all involving weird deaths of parents who have kids around Ben and Katie’s age. Then Dean has to go to pick Ben up, leaving Sam and Jess to investigate one of the past crime scenes on their own.

“I still can’t believe he has a kid,” Sam comments as they head toward the house, each dressed in stuffy corporate disguises, a dark grey suit and gold tie on Sam’s part, a navy blue pencil skirt, white blouse, and black blazer on Jess’. The clothes are uncomfortable, and she always thinks it’s really weird to see Sam dressed like that, his overgrown hair all pushed back. It’s what he would look like if he were interning at a law firm-- what he was supposed to be doing at this age before the whole demon thing happened.

“I never would have imagined that my brother would say the words ‘I have to go pick up my kid from school’ to me,” he adds. 

(he did change your diapers and make you pb&j’s when you were little, she thinks, glancing over toward her boyfriend. and he does have weird complex about taking care of you. i guess it really isn’t insane to make the jump that he would be an okay parent.)

“He seems pretty into it,” she comments instead. “Making breakfast and taking Ben places, and all.”

“Yeah. It’s weird.”

“I think it’s kind of cool.” (other than the part about him dying soon. which is really upsetting honestly so don’t think about it right now, she adds silently.)

Sam glances over at her, his eyebrows quirking a little bit. “I would’ve thought he’d scatter the second that Lisa girl broke the news to him. Especially since he was only like… what, twenty years old?” Sam shakes his head, chuckling a little. 

“It’s not like he has a ton of responsibility with Ben. He just visits sometimes. If you had a kid, wouldn’t you want to see them?” She asks.

“I don’t really think that question will ever come up.”

She turns her gaze toward the window. Watches Cicero pass by. 

(she and sam had never once discussed having kids. they were nineteen when they started dating, and there was college to think about, and grad school, and after that finding careers. she’d always figured it would come up eventually. maybe in their mid or late 20s. but she always saw herself having kids someday-- and had even pictured having kids with sam, once or twice, along with her naive pre-demon daydreams of weddings and tropical honeymoons and houses in the suburbs with a golden retriever in the yard. but now sam is saying the topic won’t come up and it’s settling in her mind weirdly, uncomfortably.)

“I think this is it,” Sam says a moment later, parking the car on the side of the street. “347 Jackson Street.”

“Yeah,” she answers a beat too late, reaching for her seatbelt.

She follows a step or two behind Sam as they make their way to the front door. He knocks. It takes a few seconds, but a woman in her mid 30s opens up.

“Hi, Mrs. Watts?” Sam says in his weird fake corporate voice he always uses for undercover stuff. “We’re from the insurance company, and we hate to bother you, but we have a few quick questions about your husband’s unfortunate accident.”

“Uh, yeah,” she says, blinking. “Go ahead.

“We’d appreciate it if you could show us where exactly the accident took place,” Jess says.

“Yeah, it was outside, right over here.” The woman closes the door behind her before leading Sam and Jess to the side of the house. A ladder is still propped up against it. “He was on the ladder here, and he fell.”

“How exactly did it happen?” Sam asks, frowning, looking up the wall.

“He was changing a light bulb. Must’ve lost his balance.”

“Were you here when it happened?” 

She shakes her head. “Just my husband and our daughter, Dakota.”

(there’s a red smudge on the window, jess notices. is that blood? if he fell off the ladder, why would there be blood on the window?)

“Alright. Thanks so much for your time, we’ll get out of your hair now.” Sam offers the woman a stiff smile. She nods and turns to leave.

Jess turns back toward the car, but Sam catches her arm. She glances at him, and with his eyes, he tells her to look at the woman’s back. When she does, she sees a round sore on the back of the woman’s neck, angry purple, surrounded by raised bumps. Jess makes a face.

“What is that, like, a hickey from hell?” She comments quietly once Mrs. Watts is inside. They head back to the Cavalier. 

“Hickey from hell? You’ve been spending too much time with my brother,” Sam chuckles. “It kind of looks like a sucker mark, like from a squid or something. Maybe something is feeding off her.”

“Why would the husbands die and the kids act so strange if the monster is just feeding on the moms?”

(i guess we’re just never going to have kids, her mind supplies irrelevantly, i guess it isn’t even a question it’s just a no)

Sam shrugs. “I don’t know. I want to run it past Dean but I guess I shouldn’t call him if he’s playing legos with Ben or whatever.”

“No, we have to keep it under Ben and Lisa’s radar,” Jess dismisses. “Maybe we call Bobby.”

“That’s not a bad idea.” He starts the car and pulls out of the parking spot. Once he’s driving straight, he takes a hand off the wheel to dig his phone out of his pocket. He takes a quick glance at the screen, frowning. “I have a missed call from Jo from just a couple minutes ago.” He hits a button to call her back.

(what does jo want? is she hunting on her own? is she in trouble? jess worries. she really shouldn’t be hunting on her own.)

“Hey, Sam,” Jo answers a moment later. 

“Hi. You’re on speaker, me and Jess are in the car. What’s up?”

“I met a hunter named Ruby recently, and she showed me something,” Jo says. “I think you guys might be interested in it.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, it’s a knife that can kill demons.”

Sam and Jess exchange a surprised glance. (a knife that can kill demons? i thought the only thing that could kill a demon was the colt.)

“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Sam comments. “Are you sure it’s the real deal?”

“Yeah. We worked a case together. I saw it in action.”

“Jo, demons are so dangerous,” Sam chastises. “I’m glad you weren’t working it alone, but that’s something you really work up to. You should stick to ghosts for now.”

“You may be my brother on paper, but you’re not in charge of me,” Jo huffs. “Anyway, my mom told me you guys left the Colt with Bobby and he’s trying to figure out what makes it tick, so I thought this might be good intel.”

“Yeah, yeah, thanks for letting me know,” Sam says. “I’ll tell Bobby about it. I’d love to see it, maybe we can meet up sometime?”

“Ruby is pretty protective of the knife,” Jo says. “I don’t know if she’ll want to. But I might be able to persuade her.”

“Are you two working together now?” Jess asks.

“Ha. You could say that. Anyway, I gotta go. Tell Dean I said hey.” She hangs up.

“Demon killing knife,” Sam repeats, putting his phone away. “That’s definitely worth looking into.”

“I don’t think I’ll believe it until I see it,” Jess says. “Demons are so hard to kill.”

“Yeah. Well, hopefully this Ruby girl is willing to play show and tell.”

+

Jess and Sam half-sneak into Lisa’s house to change back into normal clothes, and then head to a café to call Bobby and do some research. They come up with a theory-- the kids are acting weird because they’re changelings, who are known to feed on mothers and kill fathers. And based on their usual MO, it means the real kids are being held somewhere, alive.

“We have to tell Dean tonight after Ben and Lisa go to bed,” Jess says, closing her laptop. “And we need to go pick up a birthday present for Ben. His party is tomorrow.”

“Yeah, okay,” Sam says, glancing at his watch. 

They head to the local Target and pick out a kids’ science kit for him and make it home in time for Lisa’s dinner. Which is a little bit weird, and involves a lot of lying-- Sam and Jess go with their usual narrative, that they’re taking time off between college and grad school to road trip and stuff. When Lisa presses them about how they afford that, Jess cites her parents’ estate as the enabling financial resource. There had been money, of course-- but not a ton of it, and Jess had kept it aside in a separate account for the sake of paying the annual property tax on the lakehouse. Lisa doesn’t need to know that, though.

After dinner they help clean up, and Dean goes to the TV room to play some video game with Ben. After a few insisting words from the kid, Sam goes with them.

“Do you want some wine?” Lisa asks as she puts the last dish in the dishwasher.

“Oh, yeah, sure, if you’re having some,” Jess answers.

“White or rosé?”

“I’d be happy with either.”

Lisa nods, taking a few glasses out of the cupboard before getting a bottle of rosé from the fridge. Jess watches her pour two generous glasses.

“Come sit down,” Lisa suggests, setting the glasses down in front of the stools at the island bar. “So what were you going to school for in California?”

“Physical therapy,” Jess answers. She almost has to think about it for a second to remember. It’s been so long since her mind has been on Stanford or college or careers.

“That’s great. I don’t know if Dean mentioned-- I’m a yoga teacher.”

“Nice.”

“Yeah, I’m a dietician too. I own my own wellness company.”

(the phrase ‘wellness company’ kind of sounds like a pyramid scheme, jess thinks, but she keeps it to herself.)

“I used to do yoga in college. I loved it.”

“Why’d you stop?” Lisa asks, sipping her wine. 

“We’re on the road, and all, so I don’t really have a class I go to, or anything.”

“You could do it on your own.”

Jess shrugs. She sips from her glass-- the wine is tart, but also sweet. It’s a pleasant combination. 

“I’m really glad you guys decided to come. Dean always talks about Sam so much-- Ben’s always wanted to meet him. He doesn’t have any other uncles because I just have a sister and she isn’t married yet.”

Jess glances up from the wine, looking over at Lisa, taking her in. (she really didn’t know that dean had never mentioned ben to sam. god.)

“Yeah, we were only a few states away, so the timing worked out perfectly,” Jess says since she can’t really think of a better response. “He’s a cute kid. He looks a lot like Dean.”

“He does. The freckles.”

“You guys were pretty young when he was born, right?” Jess asks.

“I was twenty-five, Dean was a little younger. Obviously he wasn’t planned, but it worked out perfectly. I was ready to be a mom.” She smiles a little. “Do you think you and Sam are going to have kids?”

Jess takes a swig of wine. (apparently not.) “Oh, I don’t know. We aren’t in any rush.” As usual, the alcohol is hitting after even just a few sips, so she feels emboldened enough to ask a probing question. “Is it weird? Having a kid with someone who you aren’t… I mean, you and Dean were never in a serious relationship, right?”

Lisa laughs a little bit. “No. It’s not weird. It works out really well for us. I like being a single mom.”

“That’s really cool.”

“My parents should have gotten divorced when my sister and I were kids, but they never did. They’re miserable together. I’d rather Ben has parents who get along and don’t make each other miserable, even if that means his dad isn’t around much.”

Jess nods a few times. 

“How did your parents die?”

A little startled by the question, Jess can’t help but laugh a little bit. “Ha. Sorry. People don’t usually just… ask me that. But they died in a house fire about two years ago, just a weird freak accident.”

“Must’ve been hard,” Lisa comments. 

“Yeah. That’s kind of why Sam and I started road tripping.”

“Oh, speaking of Sam.” Lisa sets her wine glass down, tucking her hair behind her ear with her other hand. “Is he… sick?”

Jess blinks. “No. He’s fine. Why do you ask?”

“He looks so…” Lisa’s eyes nudge upward. “I don’t know, pale. His lips are kind of purple. And those eye bags-- he doesn’t look right.”

(yeah. because he still looks a little bit dead.)

“He’s anemic,” she improvises. “Not in any kind of… serious way… but sometimes he gets a little pale. I’ll have to remind him to take his iron supplements.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

Jess abruptly changes the subject, and the two of them talk for a while longer, sipping rosé, before Lisa takes Ben upstairs to get ready for bed. Then, Dean makes Jess and Sam follow him outside to make sure they won’t be overheard.

“Okay,” he says, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets, “give me the low-down.”

“We think it’s changelings,” Sam explains. “They feed on the mom, and kill the dad.”

“Yeah, they just take the kid’s place, too, so the real kids are probably trapped somewhere,” Jess adds.

Dean nods, frowning. “So Katie’s probably in some lockbox in some creep’s basement.”

“Maybe.”

“Alright, I saw we keep an eye out at the party tomorrow,” Dean says. “See which other kids are acting all robo.”

“Yeah, sounds like a plan,” Jess says. “But we don’t know how it takes its victims. So we don’t know how to keep Ben safe.”

“I can keep him safe, don’t worry about it. His room is right across the hall from Lisa’s and I’m a light sleeper. The stairs creek, I’ll hear it. I keep a gun under the bed. Silver bullets kill this thing?”

“Fire,” Sam corrects. “But I think a silver bullet would slow it down.”

“Okay. Cool. Nice work out there.”

+

In the morning, Sam and Jess help Lisa and Dean set up the birthday party. And Dean was right-- she does go all out. There’s a bouncing castle, a rented hot dog machine, a huge cake, tons of decorations, four different party games, a pinata, and enough Costco snack trays to feed an army. 

Kids and parents start showing up around noon, milling about the snack tables and the party games. Katie and her mom show up a few minutes later, and Jess confirms the theory: she has a matching sore on the back of her neck.

+

Jess and Sam spend the next day trying to figure out where the kids are being kept, without any real luck. They do manage to identify a couple more changeling kids, though, so time is running out-- the moms only last about two weeks after the changelings start feeding on them, and the dads could be killed at any moment if they get between the changeling and its food source.

And then, Monday morning, with Lisa and Ben both home thanks to a bank holiday, time runs even shorter. Because as soon as Sam and Jess wander into the kitchen, Dean makes a stupid excuse about looking at something in Sam’s car to get them outside. He leads them to the side of the house where Lisa won’t be able to see them through any windows.

“They got Ben,” he says, voice frantic. “I fucked up. They got him.” He rubs at his mouth, shaking his head.

“How do you know?” Jess asks, frowning.

“Lisa got up before me, and when I came downstairs, I saw a welt on her neck. And then I went to find Ben and he’s just fucking sitting on his bedroom floor staring at the wall. He looked at me with this creepy denture-y smile-- that’s not my fucking kid. I don’t know how I didn’t hear. It must’ve taken him overnight.”

(shit.)

“Okay, well, let’s move then,” Sam said. 

“We gotta find him. Now,” Dean instructs. 

“Is that his window?” Sam asks, gesturing upward.

Dean follows his glance. “Yeah, that’s his room.”

“Do you guys see the red smears?” Sam asks with a frown. “I saw the same ones the other day at another vic’s house.”

“Yeah, it looks like blood,” Jess says.

Sam shakes his head. “I don’t think it’s blood. I didn’t realize it before, but it looks like dirt.”

“Dirt?”

“Yeah, Dean-- like red clay dirt.”

“Okay,” Dean allows. “Maybe. You think the changeling tracked it here?”

“Yeah. So we find the dirt, we find the changeling.”

Dean runs a hand over his hair, and Jess notices his fingers are shaking a little. She frowns hard. Like that tone he’d had on the phone when he first asked them to come to Cicero-- something she hasn’t seen on him before.

“It’s okay,” she says, reaching for him, setting her hand on his arm. “We’ll find him.”

Dean shakes his head a little. Turns away. “I’ll meet you in the Impala. I’m gonna go feed Lisa some excuse or another.”

+

They start driving around town, circling through neighborhoods. After about forty minutes, they finally notice red clay dirt-- at a half-renovated house with a ‘for sale’ sign in the front yard. The house itself is only a couple streets from Lisa’s.

“Go around back to pick the lock, it’s broad daylight. Someone’s going to see if we’re out here,” Jess says as they get out of the car. Dean goes to the trunk to grab a blow torch.

“Yeah, smart,” Sam agrees. They head around back, and he starts in on the lock. 

“If that thing hurt my kid…” Dean shakes his head. “I’m gonna burn this whole fuckin’ town down.”

“It’s going to be okay, Dean. He hasn’t even been missing for a day,” Sam dismisses.

“Yeah, well, get that damn lock open, would you?”

“I’m trying. Don’t distract me.”

It pops open a moment later. Inside, the ground level of the house looks normal, save for the fact that someone evidently cut off the renovation halfway through. The walls have been ripped out, just leaving the wood framework, but the floors are coated in fresh carpeting, fluffy and clean.

“Let’s split up,” Sam says. “Dean, you look for a basement. Jess, search this floor. I’m going to look upstairs and see if I can find an attic.”

Jess nods, reaching for her gun. Sam disappears upstairs, and Jess heads toward the kitchen. By the time she makes it to the small attached laundry room, she hears Dean’s boots on the basement stairs. Another moment later, he calls her name.

She follows his voice, and finds the stairs near the hallway bathroom. She takes them.

“I’m so sorry, buddy, you’re gonna be okay,” Dean is saying when she makes it to the basement. Sure enough, the dingey room is full of cages, and the cages are full of children.

(this is so fucked up. oh my god. these poor kids.)

“I’m scared, Dad, I wanna go home,” Ben says, half whimpering.

“I know. I know, buddy. I’m gonna get you out of here. I’m so sorry,” Dean says again, trying to pry open the cage.

“You need to pick the lock,” Jess points out.

“I don’t have a lock pick,” he says, his voice frantic again.

“Don’t leave me Dad, please,” Ben begs.

“Jess, can you go find Sam and get it?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” She shakes her head, trying to postpone how disturbed she feels at the sight of scared kids locked in cages. There’s a job to do.

She takes the stairs two at a time, her head feeling a little hot. “Sam?” She calls as she makes it to the main floor and heads for the stairs.

“Jess, watch out!” He shouts back.

(watch out for what?) 

But then it comes. A monster, almost a human woman, but with greying skin, dark craters where its eyes should be, and chunks of bone and muscle poking out of its ragged arms. It flings itself at her, and Jess recoils, firing a sloppy round into its chest. The bullet slows it down, at least, and Jess is able to bury a second one in its forehead. It rasps out a terrible, rough scream, falling to the ground, twitching.

“Do you have a blowtorch?” Jess shouts to Sam, who’s coming up behind the creature.

“Yeah. Step back.”

She backs down the stairs, holding her hand out in front of her face to block the heat as Sam torches the thing. 

“Ben and the other kids are locked up downstairs. We need the lockpick,” Jess instructs once the thing is charred. “God, that smells terrible.”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s go.”

When they get downstairs, Dean has his entire arm stuffed between bars of Ben’s cage, trying to calm the scared kid. “Do you have the damn lockpick?” He demands once he sees Sam and Jess.

“Yeah, I’ll do it,” Sam confirms.

“We killed the thing,” Jess adds, stuffing her gun back into her jacket pocket. 

“Mazel tov.”

“You’re in the way, dude,” Sam huffs as he tries to get to the lock.

Dean moves, and Sam starts in on the lock. It clicks open quickly, and Dean yanks the door open, scooping Ben out and picking him up.

“I’m so sorry, Ben,” he says for the third time, definitely cutting off the kid’s circulation. “You’re gonna be okay. We just have to get the rest of the kids out and I’ll take you home.”

“What are we supposed to do with these kids?” Sam asks as he picks the second lock.

“I wanna go home,” the girl behind it whines. “I want my mommy.”

“Hey, it’s going to be okay, everyone’s going to go home,” Jess says, frowning, her eyes flitting from one kid to another. There are six locked up down here, all looking worse for wear.

(some of their dads are dead.)

Eventually, they get all the locks open, and all of the kids free. 

“Can you guys--” Dean cuts himself off, looking around at the group of scared kids.

“Yeah, we’ll figure it out,” Jess answers quickly. “You can take him home.”

“Thanks,” Dean says, setting his palm on the back of Ben’s head, who’s still clinging to him. He presses a kiss to the kid’s forehead and carries him upstairs.

“I don’t… what do we do with them?” Sam asks, a little exasperated. 

“Um, hey you guys, follow us upstairs,” Jess suggests. The kids do, some of them crying a little bit.

(has the monster been feeding them? they don’t seem starving or anything. what kind of creepy daycare was it running?)

They take the kids to the back yard. One of them immediately runs off, and neither Jess nor Sam really try to stop her.

“Uh…” Jess glances around. “Are you guys all… from around here?” She asks like she’s doing the world’s most awkward and inappropriate standup comedy.

“Yeah,” a boy pipes up.

“Do you know where your houses are?”

Most of the kids nod.

“Can you guys just walk home?” Sam asks.

“Hey, no, maybe we should go with them.”

But more of the kids are leaving, and Sam just sort of shrugs. They’re all clearly from this same neighborhood. Jess even watches one of them disappear into a house right across the street.

(okay, great, so we drove around the whole town for forty minutes when the changelings were actually just down the street, she thinks, frustrated.)

She rubs at her face. “Alright, well, that was easier than I thought it would be.”

Sam laughs a little bit, shrugging again. “Yeah, for once.”

+

Ben’s replacement had just started acting weird toward Lisa when Dean, Jess, and Sam had left an hour ago. And then, when Sam killed the monster, the replacement just sort of dissolved. So naturally Lisa is demanding answers.

The three of them try to explain everything to her while Ben plays a video game in the next room over. She only asks a few questions about the monster.

“That’s the long and short of it,” Dean concludes awkwardly. “I’m really sorry, Lisa. I didn’t think it would come through the window. I thought I was keeping Ben safe.”

“He’s safe now, I guess that’s all that matters.”

A heavy quiet falls over the dining table where the four of them are sitting. Jess glances over her shoulder into the living room; Ben is playing some game with a dragon, seemingly recovering from his ordeal just fine.

“I think we oughta hit the road,” Dean pipes up. “Get out of your hair.”

“Is Ben going to be okay?” Lisa asks. “Will there be… lasting effects?”

“No,” Sam says. “Shouldn’t be. I don’t think he was even hurt.”

She nods once. “I’m glad you guys were here when it happened,” she says quietly.

“Yeah,” Dean agrees with an uncomfortable chuckle. “Believe me… I’m thanking my lucky stars.”

“You just do this kind of thing all the time?”

“Different creatures. Sometimes ghosts or demons,” Sam answers with a shrug. “But yeah.”

“And you too?” Lisa asks Jess.

She nods. “Ever since a demon killed my parents two years ago.”

“It’s why I don’t come around more often,” Dean says. “I’m usually balls deep in ectoplasm.”

“Lovely visual,” Lisa comments. 

“Yeah, well.” He sighs. “I’m gonna say goodbye to the kid. I’ll meet you guys outside.”

+

The three of them drive for a few hours before stopping in a small town near the border of Illinois and Missouri. They eat. They get a pair of motel rooms. 

Since he smells a little bit like a campfire thanks to the blowtorch, Sam hits the shower right away, leaving Jess in the room alone.

(dean has a kid, she mulls over for the hundredth time since they’d found out a few days ago. and he’s going to die.)

(motherfucker. how could he do that to ben? let him lose a parent at such a young age?)

(we have to get him out of the demon deal. we have to.)

Sighing, she stands up from the creaky motel bed. She pockets the key card. And she wanders over to Dean’s room.

He opens the door a moment after she knocks, a bottle of beer in his hand.

“Blondie,” he greets. “Miss me already?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she says. “Can I come in?”

He nods, stepping aside, gesturing her in. “Want a beer?”

“Sure.”

She sits down on the couch, and he cracks one open for her before flopping down on the bed. It’s Mexican pale ale, nothing she’s ever had before, but it tastes pretty good. They sip their beer without talking for a moment, the TV playing some hospital show on low volume.

“Hey, Dean?” She finally pipes up.

“Yeah.”

“Did you ever tell your dad about Ben?”

He sips his beer, taking his time. The TV show switches to a bright commercial for some kind of stain remover-- Like It Never Happened! 

“No,” Dean answers. “I knew he’d be pissed. I was practically still a kid when Ben was born-- my dad was still treating me like one, anyway.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell Sam?”

“What’s with the third degree?” He asks, fidgeting a little, his shoulders rolling uncomfortably under his army green flannel.

“I’m just curious.” She sips her beer too, turning an inch or two toward the TV. If he doesn’t want to talk about it, she isn’t going to make him.

But a moment later, he does answer. “I was kind of all Sammy had. And like I said, he was still a kid himself-- he was sixteen, he still needed… I dunno, guidance. A big brother looking out for him. I didn’t want him to think I was gonna walk out on him, and I didn’t want him to accidentally tell our dad about my kid, either. So I kept it to myself. And then a couple years later he went to college, and it’s not like we were talking much over those four years. I mean, before I showed up in California and ruined your lives, we hadn’t spoken for almost two years. And then we were always buried in some kind of bullshit. I don’t know. There was never a good time to say hey, surprise, you have a nephew in Indiana.” 

Dean sips his beer again, thinking for a moment before he continues speaking. “And then Sam fuckin’ died. And he still looks kinda dead. Hell, I can hardly look the kid in the face right now, he’s too grey and creepy.” Dean shakes his head, exhaling, his breath a little shaky. 

(so dean does notice, jess can't help but think. everyone seems to notice that sam looks dead except for him.)

“That day in Cold Oak-- I’ve never felt like that in my life, Jess," Dean goes on, speaking quietly. "Not when my mom died, not when my dad died.”

Her mind is drawn almost two years backward to the day she found out her parents were dead. At that time, it was the worst hurt she’d ever felt-- so bad, it had taken her almost a full minute to even start crying. She’d clung to Sam for who knows how long, taking handfuls of his shirt, leaning against him, unable to even parse the gentle murmurings of comfort he was offering her. She’d been blinded by hot tears.

But she was a different person back then, and it isn’t the worst hurt she’s ever felt anymore. Not since that day when she watched Sam crumble to the ground, the life falling out of him like a coffee mug shattering on the kitchen floor. Her mind had gone blank with a rage so hot, it reached through her soul, controlling her like she was a puppet. Like her heart had stopped, and something she still can’t understand had filled its cavity until he woke back up. “Yeah,” she says, finally. “I get what you mean.”

Neither of them define the feeling. But about this, at least, they’re on the same page.

He nods once, holding up his beer bottle in a pitiful cheers gesture. She nudges her bottle toward it an inch or two. 

She’s come to care about Dean. She really has. But she still doesn’t really understand him.

(probably no one does. not even sam. not the way me and sam understand each other, or the way my mom and her sister understood each other.)

(he’s just going to die without being understood. and ben is going to grow up without a dad.)

The thought is too sad. She pushes it away. But she’s always been a lightweight, and she’s drained half her beer by now, so the words come out of her mouth anyway.

“I just…” she starts picking at the label of her beer, staring down at it. “You sold your soul even though you have a son?”

“Believe it or not, Jess,” Dean says quietly, “I was taking Ben into consideration when I made that deal.”

She thinks of her father. Of his big blue eyes, always hidden behind wire frame glasses. The hideous canvas sandals he always wore when they were on vacation. The weekends they’d spent road tripping when she was a senior in high school, just the two of them, to visit college campuses. How loud he would laugh if he’d been drinking. The same one story he always told about his brother crashing into his parked car.

(she misses him. they had never been terribly close, but he was still her dad, and she misses him.)

“And you decided he deserves to grow up without his dad?” She hears herself ask, the words harsher than she means, the tone softer.

“When I went to the crossroads to make the deal, I thought they’d give me ten years. He’d be going to college by the time the hellhounds came for me. But then they said I could only have a year, and I took it. Sue me.” Dean sips his beer. “I figure he’s better off without me, anyway.”

“You can’t seriously think that.”

Dean shrugs. “Look… I love that kid with everything I got. And yeah, I’m bummed I’m not going to get to teach him how to drive. Or drink a beer with him. Or go to his high school graduation. But he’s got an awesome mom and a good head on his shoulders. He’s gonna be okay-- I’d just cause him trouble.”

She looks over at him. Tries to read his face, but his lips and his eyebrows are set, stubbornly, and she can’t see anything. Just a constellation freckles-- the same formation as Ben’s, but more faded.

+

A very boring ghost case in Louisiana eats up two frustrating weeks, sending them down dead end paths and causing a lot of stupid arguments. Once they finally solve the case, they all feel like a break, so they start driving northwest toward Lake Tahoe.

They’re passing through New Mexico when Jo calls again, though, saying she got the hunter named Ruby with the demon killing knife to agree to a meet up. They decide on meeting in Colorado, since it’s kind of in between where everyone is at the moment.

Dean pulls into the rest stop first, and when Sam and Jess get out of the Cavalier, he’s already halfway to them. “You think this Ruby chick’s the real deal?” He asks.

Sam shrugs. “I don’t know. Even if she is, that knife is probably one of a kind. I guess it’s our best bet to figure out where she got it or how it was made or something.”

“Yeah, getting our mitts on something like that would be a real game changer.”

“When are they supposed to get here?” Jess asks Sam, surveying the empty rest stop and its splintered picnic tables.

“She said noon. We’re a little early.”

“Right.”

(i hope this doesn’t take long. we need to get to the library and start digging.)

Jess and Sam had picked up a couple demon books from a hunter friend of Bobby’s while Dean was otherwise occupied in Louisiana. She hasn’t even had the chance to crack into them yet. And they’re two whole months into Dean’s year.

The boys are talking about something, probably arguing, but Jess doesn’t pay attention.

(we need to stop working low profile ghost cases and start focusing on finding a solution. we’re wasting time. other hunters can deal with that shit right now.)

(maybe if we kill the demon who holds his deal, he’ll be home free. is there a hierarchy to this stuff? that demon meg did say she was working for the yellow-eyed demon, so maybe the demon who made dean’s deal has a higher up.)

She’s about to go to the car to jot these things down in her notebook, but a grey 90s Sedan pulls into the parking lot, so she stays put. Watches Jo get out of the driver’s seat, and a woman with thick dark hair and a leather jacket emerge from the passenger side.

“Hey,” Jo says as she shuts her car door. “How’re you guys doing?”

“Pretty good, what about you?” Sam asks.

“Can’t complain.” Jo and Ruby step over the curb onto the grassy area where Jess and the boys are standing. “Ruby, these are my half brothers Sam and Dean, and Sam’s girlfriend Jess. Guys, this is Ruby.”

“Pleasure,” Ruby says with a stiff nod. She has dark eyes, almost black, and medium-tan skin. Her dark hair falls in wavy curtains down her shoulders. She’s maybe an inch or two taller than Jo’s five-and-a-half-ish feet, and around her age, maybe a couple years older. Altogether a completely average looking girl-- pretty-- but she gives off a strange air.

(there’s something weird about this girl, jess notes. she misses her demonic intuition powers for a moment. figures she might have been able to pinpoint what exactly it is, if she still had them.)

“Jo told us you have a knife that can kill demons,” Sam says. 

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“We have a gun that can do the same thing,” Dean says. “Made by Samuel Colt. Problem is, the original bullets were the only thing that worked in it, and they’re gone. So a friend of ours is trying to see what makes it tick. Where’d you get your knife?”

“From a friend,” Ruby says with a shrug. “I don’t know where it came from.”

“Can we see it?” Jess asks.

Ruby glances over her shoulder. Then, she pulls it out of a waist holster that had been covered by her jacket.

The knife is smaller than Jess would have thought, but no less violent-looking. Its handle seems to be made of an antler, and its glinting silver blade is jagged with angry teeth and occult-looking carvings. 

“That’s quite the piece,” Dean comments.

“It comes in handy.”

“That’s an understatement,” Jo says with a laugh. “I watched her ice three demons in a row with that thing last week. It’s legendary.”

“And you have no idea where it originated?” Sam asks.

“No.”

“How long have you had it?”

Ruby shrugs. “Couple years.”

“Is it made out of silver?”

“What’s with the interview?” She asks, glancing from Sam to Jo. “We have work to do.”

“Yeah, us too,” Jess says. “What do you know about crossroad demons?”

She isn’t looking at Dean to see his eyeroll, but she can sense it. “Jess…”

“What is there to know?” Ruby replies, ignoring Dean. “Lowlife bastards who trade wealth and luck for human lives.”

“They trade human lives for other human lives, too,” Sam points out.

Ruby nods. “I’m aware.”

“Do you know of any ways to get out of a deal with one?” Jess pushes.

“Jess, come on, enough. Nobody knows that shit.”

She pretends not to have heard Dean’s quip.

“I don’t think you want to go down that road,” Ruby answers.

“It’s a little late for that. Is there a way?”

She shrugs. “Not really. I think you’d have to get an audience with a higher up demon than just a crossroad lowlife, and I doubt you’d be able to swing that.”

“Do you know anything about how we can restore the Colt?” Dean cuts in impatiently.

“I’ll look into it.” She slides the knife back into its holster and lets her leather jacket fall back over it, concealing it. “Jo will call you if I can swing it.”

“Thanks,” Sam says with a nod. “Appreciate it.”

“Can we split? We need to get to Texas.”

“What’s in Texas?” Dean asks.

“None of your business.”

“Yeah, let’s go,” Jo agrees, taking her car keys back out of her pocket. “See you guys.”

They watch Jo and Ruby get back into Jo’s car and drive off. 

“That chick was kinda hot,” Dean comments. “In a creepy sort of way.”

“Ugh, Dean, you don’t have to hit on every single girl you meet.”

“I think she might be involved with someone already,” Jess adds with half a laugh.

“Who?”

She blinks at Sam. “Jo.”

“What? No. Come on.”

“I’m just picking up signals,” Jess says, holding her palms up in defense. “I might be wrong. Anyway, can we go to the lakehouse now? We have research to do.”

“Research. God, you guys are boring.” Dean shakes his head. “Listen, I’ll catch you guys there later. I’m gonna swing by the Roadhouse.”

“Okay, we’ll come with,” Sam says. “It’s only a couple hours’ detour.”

“Nah, that’s fine, I’ll meet you at the lake in a few days.”

Sam makes a face. “Dude, what are you doing at the Roadhouse?”

“Gonna get drunk and play arcade games with Ash.” Dean turns, heading toward his car.

“With Ash?”

(come on, sam. don’t push it.)

“What, am I not allowed to have friends?” Dean asks without so much as a glance. He gets into the Impala before Sam can answer, and quicker than most people would be able to, he’s out of the parking lot.

“Let’s just go to California,” Jess says, reaching for Sam’s hand. “We need to hit the books.”

“Yeah,” Sam says with a nod. “Yeah. Okay.”

+

They dig themselves deep into a research hole, but by the time Dean shows up four days later, they haven’t made any progress.

“I got my hands on a case in southern Oregon,” Dean comments after he’s spent a day laying around the lakehouse. “Weird string of murders. I figured it’s gotta be a werewolf, but then the second one sounds more like a crazy old lady.” He tosses the rolled-up newspaper to Sam, who catches it. 

“Maybe they aren’t connected,” Jess suggests.

“Yeah, but there’s a third. Stepmother beat her stepdaughter to death.”

“That sounds almost like a fairy tale,” Sam comments.

Dean shrugs. “Worth looking into. It’s not a long drive, either.”

“Okay,” Sam says, nodding. “Let’s head up.”

+

They solve the case in a week, finding an unusual culprit: a girl in a coma whose father has been reading her fairytales. As they’re heading out of Oregon, Bobby calls to let them know he finished taking the Colt apart and putting it back together, and he’s made some special silver bullets for it, following some lore he’d read online. Now he just needs a demon to test it on.

“Been meaning to call you, Bobby,” Dean says as the three of them crowd around his phone in a motel parking lot. “Jo has a friend who has a demon killing knife. But she didn’t seem to know shit about it.”

“A demon killing knife? I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

“Yeah. Us either.”

“I’ll call Jo and see what she can tell me. Thanks for the heads-up.”

+

While Bobby works on improving the Colt, Jess, Sam, and Dean end up on a vampire case in Montana. It ends up being a really close call-- Dean kills a young woman who was recently turned against her will, which angers the older male vampire who had turned her. Dean risks his life alone to kill the guy, and Sam and Jess don’t find out about it until the deed is done.

“Hey, I came out alive, no scrapes,” Dean says in the motel room later, brushing off their concern with a weird sort of lightness. “No harm, no foul. Listen, I passed a tattoo parlor earlier, and it gave me an idea.”

“You want to get ‘I’m a reckless idiot’ tattooed on your face?” Jess deadpans.

“Cute.” He fishes his father’s journal out of his duffel and ruffles through it before settling on a page. Then he turns it to show Sam and Jess- a sketch of a five point star with a circle around it and rays coming off the circle. “Anti-possession sigil,” he explains.

Sam blinks. “Okay.”

“If we get this tattooed on ourselves, it’s a no-fly zone for demons.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Jess says, nodding, already considering where to get it. Someplace it won’t be visible all the time.

“I don’t know, guys, I’m not really a tattoo kind of guy,” Sam says awkwardly.

“It doesn’t hurt that bad,” Dean insists. “I have three. The shading on Dad’s gun kinda hurt but normally it really ain’t bad.”

(if dean wants to get a tattoo when he supposedly has less than nine months to live, that’s a good sign. that means he’s at least kind of willing to fight.)

“I’m in,” Jess agrees. “Let’s do it.”

“Atta girl,” Dean says with a grin. “Come on, Sammy, you want your girlfriend and your brother to have matching ink without you?”

Sighing, grimacing a little, Sam nods. “Alright. Fine.”

+

There are only two artists available at the tattoo shop, so Dean and Jess get theirs at the same time. She has to take her shirt off and lay on her stomach in just her bra for the hour long session, which is kind of weird-- she’s never had a man other than Sam see her shirtless, let alone like, lean over her body and touch her back for a full hour.

(i can’t tell if it’s weirder to have sam here, or if it would be weirder to not have sam here, she muses silently as he strokes her hand with the pad of his thumb.)

“Does it hurt?” He asks uncomfortably. 

“Yeah, of course it hurts,” she says, trying not to laugh at the question. “But it’s not so bad.”

“You’re taking it like a champ for your first tat,” the artist comments as he continues working.

“Jess, are you sure this is a good idea? We won’t be able to get office jobs.”

Again, she swallows a laugh. “Sam, it’s on my shoulder blade. Any shirt in existence will cover it. And you’re getting yours the same place Dean is getting his, right?”

“Unless he pansies out of it,” Dean quips from his tattoo chair a few feet away.

“I’m not gonna--”

Dean laughs a little.

Once Jess’ tattoo is finished and taped over to heal, and her shirt is back on, it’s Sam’s turn. She sits next to him and holds his hand while the artist inks up his left pec. He looks close to tears.

(at least the color is back in his face.)

“It’ll be over soon,” she reassures him, again trying not to laugh. He flicks an uncomfortable half-grin at her.

Dean wanders over a few minutes into Sam’s session and sits down in the other vacant seat next to Jess. “It ain’t that bad, don’t get your panties in a twist.”

“Yeah, easy for you to say, you’ve been getting inked in basements since you were fifteen.”

“Oof, I wouldn’t recommend that,” the artist comments as he continues working on Sam’s tattoo.

“Yeah, me neither, it looks like shit now,” Dean says cheerfully. “Well-- it looked like shit then, too. It was supposed to be eagle wings, but everyone who sees it thinks it’s angel wings.”

+

Later that night, as Jess is getting ready for bed, she catches Sam frowning at his new tattoo in the mirror.

“It looks good,” she says, starting to loosely braid her hair like she always does before bed. “Makes you look tough.”

“The skin around it is so red. It looks infected.”

“It’s not infected.”

“It’s itchy.”

“Mine is too. That’s normal, the guy said.”

Sam sighs. She ties off her braid and wanders over to him, wrapping her arms around his shirtless chest from behind, pressing a kiss to the side of his face. “Dean was right. It’s a good idea. We’re never going to have to throw holy water at each other again.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, avoiding her eyes in the mirror, studying the hotel’s ugly popcorn wall. “Yeah, you’re right.”

(i doubt he’s this bummed about the tattoo. if he really hated it that much, he could have said no, or he could have gotten it on his back like i did.)

“Is something else bothering you?” She asks, letting go of him, going to sit down on the bed. He follows, sighing again.

“My brother,” he says. “Risking his life like that with the vampires-- he didn’t even care. He’s just resigned himself to dying. And I can’t even find a way out of it.”

“I hear you. But we still have time, Sam. We’ll figure something out.”

(i hope.)

“He just turns everything into a punchline. But I can tell he’s scared.”

“He’d be insane to not be scared,” she comments. “I mean… hell. We don’t even really know what that means. How bad it is.”

Sam nods his agreement. “Yeah. And he’s acting all weird and impulsive. I just… I wish he’d just act like my brother. I don’t have much time left with him.”

“You should tell him that.”

Sam glances over at her, his eyebrows nudged together. “He won’t listen.”

“Well, you could at least try, you dummy,” she half-teases, pushing him in the shoulder. “I’m so tired of masculinity. Just talk to each other. It won’t kill you.”

Sam laughs weakly, rubbing at his eyes. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll try.” He leans over and kisses her before standing and heading for the door.

“Sam, oh my god, put a shirt on.”

“Yeah. Yeah, right.” He reaches for one and yanks it on. “What would I do without you?”

“Crash and burn, probably,” she says with a smile.

He smiles back. “Yeah. I’ll, uh-- I’ll be back soon.”

+

Sam doesn’t say anything about his talk with Dean, and Jess doesn’t ask. The next day they start driving again, and a few days later, the boys get a call on one of John’s old phones that Dean keeps: someone broke into his storage locker, which the boys hadn’t even known existed.

The three of them drive up to it and quickly figure out what’s missing: a one of the six or seven curse boxes John had stacked up on a shelf.

“The things you learn about a guy after he dies,” Dean says under his breath. “Son of a bitch.”

“I saw security cams in the hallway,” Sam says, frowning. “We can figure out who has it.”

They do, and they manage to track the guy down and intimidate him into giving the thing he stole back, even though he stole it on behalf of someone else. A rabbit’s foot.

Once they’re back in the car, Sam calls Bobby on speaker phone to ask about it, and the first thing out of his mouth once he hears the phrase ‘rabbit’s foot’ is “For the love of God, boy, don’t touch it.”

“Uh…” Sam pulls a face.

“You already did, didn’t you?”

“I’m afraid so, Bobby.”

“Look, I’ll put the Colt on hold and figure out a way to break the curse, but in the mean time, don’t lose it, okay?” He huffs over the phone.

“Yeah. Don’t lose it. What’s the deal?”

“You’re about to have the best luck of your life. But if you lose it, all of that’s gonna go out the window, and you’ll die in some stupid accident within a day.”

Jess frowns. “You mean the guy who had it… he’s going to die?”

“Probably already did,” Bobby sighs. “Not your fault, kiddo. He’s the one who went and stole it.”

(why couldn’t john just fucking destroy the damn thing? she thinks agrily.)

“Just lay low until I call back, okay?” Bobby adds.

“Roger that.” Dean agrees.

+

The three of them head to a restaurant, winning a free meal because they’re the three hundred thousandth visitor or something. As they’re heading back to their hotel, though, Sam trips and falls flat on his face.

“Don’t tell me you lost the damn thing,” Dean huffs.

“It’s not in my pocket. Shit.”

“Oh my god,” Jess sighs. “Great.”

“It’s okay,” Dean says, helping Sam to his feet. His jeans are ripped at the knees, and ugly scrapes peak through. “I’m gonna take care of it. Uh… okay. Let’s get to the motel. Jess, you babysit him, make sure he doesn’t step on any landmines. I’ll figure out who those thieves were supposed to sell the foot to. I’ll fix this for you.”

(stop putting your effort toward trying to take care of your brother while you’re still here, dean, and start putting it toward getting out of your demon deal, jess chastises in her head.)

“Okay,” Sam says with a small nod, his shoulders all hunched up. “Yeah.”

+

Dean drives them back to the motel, and Jess basically stares at Sam for three hours.

Sitting still doesn’t exempt you from bad luck, though, apparently. Because the heater catches on fire at one point, and the TV dies at another, and then Sam gets an alert that his email was hacked into.

But they deal with the crises as they arise, and eventually Dean shows back up, the rabbit’s foot in his hand. “You’re off the chopping block, little brother,” he says, holding it up. “My ass is on the line now.”

Sam sighs, frustrated. “Dean, you shouldn’t have touched it.”

He shrugs. 

(stop risking your stupid life, you moron, jess wants to shout at him. but she says nothing.)

“Bobby told me how to destroy it. Burn it with salt and rosemary.” He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a little plastic case of herbs from the grocery store. “I see you’ve already left a nice little char mark on the hotel carpet. So let’s just get this over with and get the hell outta dodge.”

+

The threat of the rabbit’s foot passed, the three of them head to the lakehouse. Sam and Jess hit the books again, looking for some kind of solution to Dean’s problem. Meanwhile, Dean marathons a bunch of dumb horror movies, which makes no sense to Jess, considering the fact that their entire lives are kind of one big horror movie.

A few days into this, though, Jo calls. She and Ruby need help with a case in Nevada. 

“I dunno if I wanna hunt with this Ruby girl,” Dean says after Sam relays the message over breakfast. He stuffs a piece of bacon into his mouth as if to punctuate the sentiment.

“If Jo trusts her…” Sam shrugs.

“Sammy, we hardly know Jo.”

“I think we should go. And just be on high alert,” Jess says, refilling her coffee cup.

Sam nods in agreement. “Anyway, since when does Dean Winchester turn down a case?”

He bats at the air, standing to take his empty plate to the dishwasher. “He doesn’t. I ain’t. I’m just saying, I don’t like hunting with people other than you two or Bobby, and I think Ruby is hiding something.”

“What could she be hiding that’s worse than anything we’re hiding, Dean?”

“Why the hell does she know so much about demons?” Dean counters.

Jess almost laughs. “Hey, guys? We know a lot about demons. So does Bobby. So did Pastor Jim. So does Ash.”

(if she didn’t know better, she would think dean’s face pinked at little at the mention of ash. oh, wait, she thinks. i do know better. and it totally did.)

“That’s a good point, babe,” Sam agrees, taking his plate to the dishwasher too, and grabbing Jess’ since it’s empty. “Anyway, we could maybe learn a thing or two from her. It sounds like she has a lot of experience demon hunting.”

(maybe i should call asa fox and see what he knows about crossroad demons, jess realizes. but she still hasn’t told sam about sacramento, and he has so much on his plate right now, it probably isn’t a good time. she decides she’ll call next time she’s able to step away from sam without it being weird. and maybe she’ll just tell dean anything she learns from asa and dean can tell sam like he learned it from one of his hunting contacts.)

“Alright, fine,” Dean huffs. “Let’s move. Meet you guys out front in ten.”

Jess quickly puts the rest of the dirty breakfast stuff in the dishwasher and starts it, even though it isn’t full, so they won’t have to come home to a bunch of nasty dishes in the sink. Then she heads upstairs to get packing.

“Hey, Jess?” Sam asks as he folds a pair of jeans and stuffs them into his duffel.

“Hmm?”

“I think we should just go in the Impala.”

She pauses, turning away from her own bag to face him for a second. She takes a step toward him, and reaches for his overgrown hair, brushing it off his forehead. A barely perceptible movement, he leans into her touch. “Why?” She asks. “Is the Cav having problems again?”

“No, not that I know of. I mean… I dunno. We shouldn’t make Dean drive alone all the time. Or if you don’t want to do that… you could drive the Cav, and I’ll go with my brother,” he suggests kind of awkwardly.

(is that what you really want? alone time with your brother? you could just say that, dummy.)

“Let’s do that,” she suggests. “It’s nice having two cars sometimes, and all. Anyway, we don’t know if he’s going to want to go someplace else after we wrap up the case.”

“Okay,” Sam says with a nod. “If you’re sure.”

She leans up to kiss him before responding. “Yeah, no problem.”

He smiles down at her a little bit, sliding his hand around her back, pulling her in for a hug. “You’re the best.”

They turn away from each other and quickly finish packing.

(this is good, she decides as she zips her bag closed. we won’t have to argue about music and the boys will maybe be forced to actually talk about some stuff. and i can call asa while i’m driving.)

+

She follows Dean’s car through the forest and onto the main road. Once they get to the highway, and it’s a straight shot, she reaches for her phone to call Asa.

It rings five or six times. She’s about to hang up, but he answers.

“Hello.”

“Hi, Asa. I don’t know if you remember me-- it’s Jess Moore?”

“Yeah, I remember you, you don’t have to ask if I remember you every single time you call me,” Asa says with half a laugh. “How ya doin’, kid?”

“Not bad. Yourself?”

“Can’t complain.”

“I’m trying to figure something out. About demons. And I thought you might know about demons, because of the red-eyed one you were hunting.”

“Still am,” he corrects with a sigh. “Slippery bastard. But yeah, I know a fair amount. What’s your problem?”

“Well…” She frowns a little, watching Dean’s Impala speed along ahead of her. “My boyfriend’s brother Dean made a deal with a demon. His time is up in less than a year. I’m hoping to get him out of it.”

“Shit,” Asa says. “Why’d he make the deal?”

“To save Sam’s life. His brother. And I sort of encouraged him to do it, so I feel… pretty bad about the whole thing.”

“Huh. Well, as far as I know, there’s no way out of a crossroads deal. You could try fighting off the hellhounds when they come for him, but that’s not going to last-- they’ll just keep circling until they can get to him.”

Her spine goes cold, and she holds her phone between her shoulder and her face, fumbling to turn the car’s heater on. “Yeah. Will you call me if you happen to hear anything new about demon deals?”

“Sure thing. Hey, I remember you saying way back when… you were looking for your boyfriend’s dad, John Winchester, right?”

“Yeah. We found him eventually.”

“Is it the same Winchesters as Mary Winchester?”

Jess frowns.

(their mom? why would this random hunter know anything about their mom?)

“Yeah. Mary’s Sam and Dean’s mom.”

Asa exhales on the other line. “Small world,” he comments. “Mary is the one who got me into hunting back in ‘80 when I was just a kid.”

(mary got him into hunting, her mind replays. what the fuck?)

Before she can ask about it, though, Asa continues speaking. “How’s she doing? I haven’t seen her since then.”

“I hate to tell you this, but she’s been dead since Sam was a baby,” Jess admits. “November of 1983. Yellow eyed demon killed her. That’s why the Winchesters were hunting for it.”

“She’s dead? God damn. That blows.”

“Yeah.”

“Look… if Dean is Mary’s kid, I’ll… I’m gonna see what I can do about getting him out of that deal.”

“Really?” She asks, relief coloring her tone and breaking her cool.

“Yeah. She saved my life back in ‘80. Werewolf would’ve killed me if she hadn’t turned up. She was badass. So I figure I owe her one.”

(mary. hunting. in 1980 when dean was a baby. what the absolute fuck…)

“Right,” Jess says, still too surprised and relieved to really think of anything else to say. “Yeah. Okay. Well… call me if you figure anything out, okay?”

“Will do. Stay safe out there.”

“Thanks, Asa. You too.”

He hangs up. She closes her Razr, shaking her head a little bit.

(their mother was a hunter. they probably don’t even know that. actually, there’s no way they know that.)

(she was out hunting between the boys being born. did she ever even stop? was she hunting when sam was a baby, too?)

(leaving your baby at home to go save some other kid does sound like the winchester way, though. maybe i shouldn’t be surprised. i thought it was just their dad but i guess it was both of them.)

(were she and john hunting together? and they just kept it a secret from the boys until she died? but why wouldn’t john tell them that eventually?)

She exhales, frowning at Dean’s car on the road ahead of her.

+

Halfway through the four-hour drive, Jess has to pause her Simple Plan album to answer her phone.

“It’s your Aunt Sandy, sweetie. I just wanted to check in.”

“Hi, yeah, I’m doing good,” Jess says, trying not to swerve. “Sorry. I’m just driving. How are you and Uncle Dan?”

“We’re doing great. We’re finally re-doing the patio. Building an outdoor kitchen,” Sandra replies. “It’s taking so much longer than we expected, but it’s coming along nicely. I’m looking through a garden furniture catalogue right now to find a nice outdoor dining set.”

“That sounds great.”

“Where are you driving to, hon?”

“Las Vegas,” she lies. 

“Oh, really? That sounds fun. So you’re in the area. You should really come home sometime.”

(home? she thinks to herself, face scrunching up. northern california isn’t my home anymore. i’m not sure i have a home other than sam.)

“Uh, maybe,” she answers a beat too late.

“We haven’t seen each other since the funeral. I figured you needed time, but it’s been a couple years now. I think it would be good for you to come visit. You know, Christmas is coming up-- Dan’s daughter is coming, your step cousin Stephanie? I think you should come too. You can bring your boyfriend, if you like.”

She frowns. 

(actually… maybe that’s a good idea. maybe i should talk sam into having christmas with dean. just the two of them. if i leave, he’ll kind of be forced to, right?)

“You know, Aunt Sandy, that sounds nice,” she says. “I’ll think about it.”

“Please do. We should have the patio done then. We’re putting in an outdoor fire place-- we can have Christmas dinner outside,” she says brightly. “I worry about you, driving all across the country with that boy, never coming home-- I really think it’s time you come home for a while.”

(okay, ‘a while’? let’s not get carried away here.)

“Yeah. Yeah. I’ll… I’ll get back to you. I have to talk to Sam. See what his plans are.”

“You know, if you’re going to be so involved with him, don’t you think it’s time you two get engaged?”

She almost laughs in surprise. “I’ll call you later, Aunt Sandy. Bye.”

“Okay. Buh-bye.”

She hangs up, shaking her head a little bit. 

(the demon had said something about sam planning on proposing to me a couple years ago. i wonder if he just said that to fuck with me or if it was true.)

If he’d asked her back then, before any of this demon stuff, she would have said yes in a heartbeat. She would have been thrilled. She would have called her parents to tell them immediately, even though she would have known for a fact they’d tell her she’s too young. But she’s always known Sam was The One, or whatever you want to call it, and back before this demon stuff, she daydreamed about marrying him all the time.

She can see the back of his head in the passenger seat of Dean’s car. She watches him turn to look out the side window.

Her mind turns again to the comment Sam had made about having kids. About how the topic would never come up. 

(yeah, with how our lives are now, it’s hard to imagine having a normal wedding and having a baby, in a concrete way, she thinks, but that doesn’t mean it’s a never. we’re twenty-four. we have at least ten years left to think about having kids. we don’t have to be stuck in motel rooms and rural roads for the rest of our lives. hunting doesn’t have to be a death sentence.)

(if we can’t save dean. if he dies. maybe we can have a normal life after that.)

A hot pang of guilt burns her skin, and she hates herself or even thinking that. She doesn’t want Dean to die. She really, really wants to save him.

(but maybe we can’t. maybe when his time runs out, it’ll just be me and sam.)

(we killed the demon. there’s no reason to hunt, not anymore. and after we get to the point of either saving dean or not, there’s no reason to be involved in anything supernatural ever again.)

She tries to picture the two of them moving back to Palo Alto. Filling a new apartment with house plants from the greenhouse club’s weekend sales. Sam getting an internship, her working at the breakfast place again as they push through grad school, two years for her, three for him. A house in the suburbs, a golden retriever, a couple little ones running around eventually.

These things used to be so clear to her, like she could almost touch them. But now they don’t feel like a possibility. Now, she isn’t even sure if she wants to stop hunting, even if they can’t save Dean.

Sam had told her a while back that she was getting good at it. And maybe she never wanted to admit it before, maybe she’s always been blinded by a single motivator-- revenge-- but now that she takes the time to ask the question, the answer is kind of weirdly clear.

She likes hunting. It satiates something inside of her. Even if Dean does die, she might not want to stop. At least not right away.

+

When they make it to Battle Mountain, Nevada, they head straight for the motel Jo had mentioned, and they find the room in question. Jo answers it a few seconds after Dean knocks, her cheeks a little rosy, her hair a little messed up.

“Hey, guys,” she says brightly. “Thanks for coming. Wanna come sit down? I’ll tell you everything.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Sam says with a nod as the three of them head into the room.

One of the two beds is perfectly made, the other is messed up. Ruby offers them a wave from where she’s sitting on the edge of the unmade bed. She wipes her mouth.

(yeah. i totally called it. they’re together, or at least hooking up, jess thinks, almost smugly.)

“Sit down,” Jo prompts again. They do, Jess and Sam on the couch, Dean on the untouched bed. 

“What is it, demons?” Dean asks, glancing around the room, which is decorated like it’s still 1985. 

“No. If it were demons, we’d already be done with it,” Ruby answers a little defensively. “It’s something neither of us have seen before. We figured you might know what it is.”

“Sure, give us the low-down,” Sam agrees.

“There was a man found dead in his own backyard,” Jo says, reaching for a newspaper clipping on the nightstand, offering it to Sam. “It was like he’d been partially eaten by some huge animal.”

“Except there aren’t bears or wolves or cougars around here most of the time, and there haven’t been any sightings of an animal like that, or footprints or anything,” Ruby adds.

Sam nods, looking at the article, before handing it to Jess. She skims it.

“Is that the only one?” Dean asks.

Jo shakes her head. “Another body was found on the side of the road.” She hands Sam a second newspaper clipping. “Do you guys have any ideas?”

“Yeah, I’m thinkin’ rugaru,” Dean says. “They grow up as humans, but then one day they get a taste for raw meat, then for human flesh. Then they go loco and start mauling and eating people. They get all ugly and veiny and their eyes go black, or red if they’re still turning. Nasty sons of bitches.”

“Rugaru,” Ruby repeats with a nod. “Great. Thanks. We can probably take it from here.”

“Hey, we drove all the way over, and now you wanna bench us for the fun part?” Dean protests. He shakes his head. “No way, Wednesday Addams. You don’t even know how to kill the thing.”

“I want them to stay,” Jo says, turning to face Ruby. “Please?”

Ruby deflates a little, and nods. “Fine. Yeah. We’ll hunt it together.”

“Awesome,” Dean says. 

“Were there any witnesses to the murders?” Sam asks.

“Yeah, maybe. The cops told me there was a homeless guy who was around the second one,” Jo answers. “They didn’t interview him ‘cause cops suck and think homeless people are universally stupid.”

“We could drive around town, looking for homeless people,” Jess says. “Or we could try to figure out if there’s a camp or anything. Or hit up shelters.”

Sam nods. “Yeah, let’s start there. See if we can find the guy. Do you know anything else about him, Jo?”

“Just that he’s a middle-aged white man with light brown hair.”

“Okay,” Sam says with another nod. 

Dean stands up. “Let’s hit the streets.”

+

The case goes fast, once they track down the witness. Dean’s idea turns out to be right-- it was a rugaru, a newly turned one. They find him and torch him within two days. Before they can leave Nevada and head back to the lakehouse, though, Bobby calls. Mysterious death in Missouri, probably a case. 

When they get to Missouri, they stop at a FedEx Kinko’s so Sam can make them some last-minute CDC badges. Jess and Dean keep the husband of the dead woman distracted while Sam searches the crime scene-- the en-suite bathroom by their room. He comes out with a grave look on his face.

“Thanks so much for your time, Mr. Dutton. We’ll be in touch,” Jess says with a professional smile.

“Yeah, okay,” he says. The three of them head back out to Dean’s car.

“What’d you find, Sam?” Jess asks once they’re in the Impala.

“Hex bag,” he answers, producing it from his pocket. “It has a small bone in it, and some dirt, and some kind of herb. Nothing else it could be.”

“Son of a bitch,” Dean says. “Or… son of a witch. Huh?” He seems pleased with his joke, but neither Jess nor Sam laugh at it.

“So a witch put a curse on her? Or something?” Jess asks.

“I’m willing to bet it’s a coven. Witches don’t usually work alone,” Dean says. “Let’s see if we can figure out who would want to hurt the Duttons.”

+

Before they can make much progress, Paul Dutton himself dies, too. That night, though, they manage to trace the spells to a ‘book club’ including a woman named Amanda, who Paul was having an affair with-- but Amanda is dead now, too.

The three of them are sitting around Dean’s motel room, trying to figure out the next steps, when Dean starts choking on nothing.

“Dude, breathe,” Sam says, standing, going over to his brother on the back. “What’s going on?”

(oh, shit.)

“Sam, I think it’s the witches,” Jess says quickly, already looking for a hex bag under the bed. “Shit.”

“Find the hex bag!” Sam shouts at her as Dean starts coughing up blood.

“I’m trying!” She yanks open the nightstand drawer.

“Hurry,” Dean croaks. “Motherfucker. I feel like I’m being stabbed.” He chokes out more blood, crumbling to the floor. Sam lets go of him, fumbling for his keys.

“I’m going to go stop the witches.”

“What? Sam, no.”

“Keep looking for the hex bag. I’ll be back in a minute.”

He’s gone before Jess can protest further, and with Dean writhing on the floor, choking on blood, she doesn’t have time to anyway. She reaches under the couch next, but there’s nothing.

(what do i even do with it once i find it? burn it? dump it out? fuck. why did sam have to leave?)

“Jess,” Dean grunts.

“I’m trying, Dean, I’ll find it.” She reaches behind the mini fridge.

He gives a labored, thick exhale. And then he goes quiet.

She whips around to look at him, curled up on the floor, clutching his chest, blood on his chin. “Dean? Dean!”

She scrambles for his wrist. He still has a pulse. He’s still breathing.

“Fuck,” she says under her breath, continuing to look, reaching for the TV stand-- but then someone is pounding on the door out of nowhere.

She freezes, unsure of what to do.

(maybe it’s sam. he was in a hurry so he forgot to grab the key card.)

If it’s a hotel employee, she’ll tell them it’s not a good time and slam the door in their face, she decides. She goes to open it.

“Hi,” Ruby says shortly, pushing past Jess, into the room.

“Ruby-- what are you doing here?” 

“I came here to save his life. You gonna tell me to fuck off?” Ruby asks, leaning over Dean, pulling a little pouch out of her jacket pocket. Jess watches in confusion as the girl opens the pouch, holds Dean’s jaw open, and dumps its powdery contents down his throat.

Dean coughs on it, regaining conscious immediately, sitting up. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Same question twice, huh? Don’t you guys get bored?” Ruby asks, standing up. “How about thank you for saving my life?”

“Where’s Jo?” Jess hears herself ask without really meaning to.

“She’s at her mom’s place in Nebraska. I knew you guys would turn up for this case so I left her there and hauled ass over.”

Jess blinks. “Why?”

Ruby whirls around to face her, her dark eyes hard. “Because I know the witches that hexed him,” she says. She glances around the room for no more than five seconds before taking a few steps toward the sofa, unzipping the back cushion, and pulling a hex bag out. 

(this girl is like, my age. how does she know so much? she must have been hunting her entire life, jess thinks, still a little shocked.)

“Well, uh, thanks for saving my bacon,” Dean coughs, pulling himself to his feet. “We should call Sam.”

Ruby frowns. “Where’s Sam?”

“He went to stop the witches,” Jess admits.

“You guys are so goddamn stupid.” Huffing, Ruby stomps to the door and flings it open. Jess and Dean just sort of watch, blinking.

+

The two of them clean up the motel room, and Dean cleans the blood off his face and changes his shirt. They exchange about a hundred “how did she know we were here”s and “I have no idea”s.

Then, eventually, Sam lets himself back into the room.

Jess all but runs over to him, throwing her arms around him, and he hugs her back with one arm.

“Are you okay?” She asks. “Why were you gone so long? What happened?”

“Ruby’s a demon,” he says, a little breathless. 

Dean stands up from where he’d been sitting on the bed, stomping over. “What? The girl who just saved my ass?”

Sam nods. “She’s a demon. I was trying to deal with the witches, and she showed up. Basically, there was a demon possessing one of the book club women, and she was controlling the others and making them do witchcraft. And Ruby knew it because when Ruby was human, she was a witch, too, and she sold her soul to this same demon. The other demon told me the truth. I didn’t wanna believe it, but then she threw holy water on Ruby-- it’s true.”

“Son of a bitch,” Dean huffs.

“We have to tell Jo,” Jess says, thinking back to their motel room with one messy bed and one untouched bed. “She can’t just date a demon.”

“Yeah, yeah, we need to get in touch with her before Ruby gets back to the roadhouse,” Sam agrees, nodding a few times. He fumbles in his pocket for his phone. Jess and Dean both just sort of stare at him while he waits for Jo to pick up.

Eventually, though, she does. “Hey, Sam.”

“Jo,” he says, still a little frantic. “Ruby’s a demon.”

“I know that,” Jo sighs.

Sam opens his mouth to respond, but then he doesn’t. He meets Jess’ eyes, then Dean’s, and the three of them just sort of stand around in a stupid circle for a moment.

(she knows? she knows ruby is a demon and she’s still hunting with her and hooking up with her and whatever else?)

“Jo, she’s… she’s a demon,” Sam stutters.

“Yeah. I know,” Jo responds, tone a little defensive. “I’ve known this whole time, Sam. It’s not a big deal. She’s a good demon.”

“A good--” Dean cuts himself off, rubbing at his mouth. “Do you hear yourself, Jo?”

“I didn’t think it was possible either. But Ruby’s different. She remembers what it’s like to be human,” Jo insists. “She’s on our side.”

Jess exhales before speaking. “Jo, I know you have feelings for her, but she’s still a demon. This is a bad idea.”

“You two used to be part demon,” Jo huffs.

Again, Sam and Jess freeze, their eyes widening. “What do you mean?” Jess asks.

“Yellow eyes fed you both demon blood to make you stronger. That made you part demon,” Jo says. Jess notices the sound of a car passing by her-- she must have stepped outside the roadhouse to take the call. “Ruby told me all about it. He had a gate to hell opened for a minute until you killed him, Jess, that’s how Ruby got out. She said yellow eyes started a war.”

“We weren’t-- the demon blood thing didn’t make us part demon,” Sam dismisses, shifting his weight between his feet, his shoulders kind of hunched up. Making himself smaller. “Demons are never good news, Jo. You need to distance yourself from her.”

Jo laughs a little bit. “I am so sick of people telling me what to do. Thinking they know what’s best for me. You know who lets me make my own choices? Ruby. She cares about me. She understands me way better than any of you do, or my mom. So I like where I’m at. I’m going to stick with her. Anyway, she already told me she saved both of your lives, guys, so who are you to complain?”

The line goes dead. 

“She hung up on us,” Sam says softly. 

“We gotta talk to Ellen. There’s no way she knows,” Dean says.

Jess nods. “That might be a good idea.”

“I can’t believe our half sister is running around with a demon,” Sam says, shaking his head. “Unbelievable."


	6. second half of season three

“Bobby-- Hi. It’s Sam. Thanks for picking up.”

Jess and Dean both glance over to where Sam is sitting at the small table in their Kansas motel room. They’d left Missouri that morning, driving all day, trying to get in touch. But it had taken about five attempted calls for Bobby to answer.

“Hi, Sam. Sorry about the radio silence. I was working a case with Rufus,” Bobby answers, his voice thin through the filter of the speaker phone. “Vamp nest in Bismarck. How’d the Missouri deal go?”

“It was a demon controlling a coven of witches,” Sam says. He shakes his head. “Bobby, that Ruby girl Jo is hunting with? She’s a demon.”

“She’s a what, now? Does Jo know?”

“Oh, she knows,” Dean answers, coming closer, sitting on the other chair. “She just doesn't give a shit.”

“What do you mean, she knows and she don’t care?” Bobby asks, his tone hard. “That girl… she’s got a good head on her shoulders but she’s not mature enough to be hunting.”

“She said Ruby is a good demon, Bobby,” Jess adds. “That’s… not a thing, right?”

“Hell, no. No such thing as a good demon. Have you told Ellen?”

“Negative on that front,” Dean says.

“I can hardly believe this. I was just on the phone with Jo a few days ago. She was saying she’s bringing Ruby up to help me work on the Colt. I guess now we know how Ruby gets all her intel. I just don’t get what her motive is.”

“Yeah, us either,” Jess says. “Jo said the yellow eyed demon started a war. He told me about it back before I killed him-- humans versus demons. Jo’s convinced Ruby is on the human side.”

“I don’t buy that,” Bobby says.

“No. It’s ridiculous,” Dean dismisses. “Are they still coming? Up to Sioux Falls?”

“Yeah, I guess so. I have the place warded up the wazoo after what happened with you, Sam. I’ll have to deal with ‘em in the scrap yard. You three hear anything about a demon called Lilith?”

Jess frowns, glancing from Sam to Dean. “No.”

“Well, Jo mentioned her to me on the phone the other day. She’s got a personal vendetta against you two, Sam and Jess, for stopping yellow eyes back in Cold Oak. I was wondering how Jo knew something like that-- but I guess it’s her demon drinking buddy.”

“Why is Jo telling you stuff about us, instead of telling us?” Sam asks, exasperated, gesturing vaguely with his hand that isn’t holding the phone. “She’s too childish to be doing this. She doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation.”

“Hell, no, she doesn’t,” Dean grunts in agreement.

“Yeah, well, kid’s stubborn.” Bobby sighs. “I’m glad you told me before Ruby shows up here. I’ll play it safe.”

“Shouldn’t we just kill her?” Jess asks.

“She saved Dean’s life the other day,” Sam points out, frowning harder.

“I don’t like working with a demon any more than you do, kid, but she knows shit. And she’s willing to share. So I guess we gotta keep her on a leash for now,” Bobby says. “I’ll let ya go. Gotta meet Rufus for dinner before we go our separate ways.”

“Okay. Thanks, Bobby.” Sam hangs up. 

“I don’t feel good about this, guys,” Dean says, rubbing at his mouth. “A demon showing up at Bobby’s? That’s two against one. We oughta haul ass to South Dakota and play backup.”

“Bobby’s the best hunter we know. He can handle himself,” Sam says. “Besides. You wanted to check out that case in Wyoming, right?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Dean sighs. “Alright. I guess we head west in the morning.”

+

The haunting in Wyoming is resolved within a couple days. Dead abusive father identified, bones burned, case closed.

As they’re packing up to leave Wyoming, Jess happens to notice the date on her phone. December 20th. 

(if i go to etna to spend christmas with aunt sandy and uncle dan, it will take me at least two days of driving from here.)

(it’ll take at least that long to get back to tahoe. and then i would have to drive like five hours north too.)

“Hey, Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“I… I’m going to go spend Christmas at my aunt and uncle’s,” she says, feeling almost embarrassed, for some reason.

“Oh,” Sam says, surprised. “I didn’t realize it was coming up.”

“Yeah, in a few days,” she confirms. “I think you should stay with Dean and I’ll drive the Cav to Etna.”

“I could go with you.”

“Sam… I think you and Dean should just do Christmas together,” she says.

He frowns. “Honey, we don’t do holidays.”

“Yeah. I know. But didn’t you celebrate them when you were kids?”

“I mean…” he shrugs. “I can think of this one year when Dad left us alone in a motel for like two weeks. And Dean stole some kid’s Christmas presents to pretend Dad left them for me. Except it was Barbies.”

If that wasn’t so pitiful, she would laugh. “Uh… yikes.”

“Yeah. I don’t know. We don’t do Christmas. There was always a case or something.”

She toys with the zipper of her bag. “But it might be his last Christmas.”

She avoids his face. She can imagine the look on it, anyway, and it’s nothing she wants to see.

“We’re going to do our best to save him,” she says. “We’re going to keep working. After I leave Etna, I’ll head back to the lakehouse and pick up research. But as it stands, Sam… we don’t have any progress. You have to prepare for the possibility that--”

He cuts her off. “I don’t want to talk about it, Jess.”

She nods once, still avoiding his eyes, and zips her bag closed. “Alright. Well. Celebrate Christmas or don’t. But you should… hang out with your brother. Just the two of you.”

“How long are you going to be gone?” He asks quietly.

“If I leave now, I’ll get there on the twenty-second. And I’ll leave the day after Christmas,” she says. “We can meet back at the lakehouse then.”

“Okay. Yeah. I guess.”

She sets down the shirt she’d been folding and wanders over to him, sliding her arms around his back, hugging him close. “Just do brother stuff, okay? I think you’ll be glad you did,” she says into his shoulder.

He draws a slow, uneven breath. He doesn’t respond.

+

When Jess calls her aunt to let her know the plan, Sandy is thrilled. She makes Jess listen as she flicks through all her holiday baking recipes so Jess can let her know which ones she wants to make together. The phone call lasts for almost half an hour of driving.

Once they hang up, she puts on one of the few albums she’s bought for Sam’s car. Mostly to drown out the guilt she feels about Dean.

(because she’s always considered herself a smart person, a problem solver, but she can’t seem to solve this problem. and asa hasn’t called her with any answers. and she doesn’t know who else to ask.)

(and dean is going to die at thirty and sam is going to be devastated and ben is going to grow up without a father.)

(oh my god, she realizes, hands tight on the wheel-- sam and i are going to have to tell ben and lisa about dean dying.)

The thought sends a cold chill through her nervous system, and she fumbles to turn both the heat and the radio volume up to chase it out.

+

When she finally makes it to Sandy and Dan’s, she’s tackled in hugs, and a glass of sangria is immediately placed into her hand, and Sandy talks her ear off for a good hour. They play board games by the fire on the brand new patio. They eat dinner at Jess’ old favorite restaurant.

The next day, her step cousin Stephanie turns up, a girl around her own age who she’s only met maybe six times over the past decade. 

“You went to Stanford, right? What did you study?” Stephanie asks while they wait for Sandy to make dinner and Dan to come back with a few bottles of wine.

(i guess i did go to stanford.)

“Uh, yeah, I have a degree in health studies,” Jess answers. “Where do you go?”

“I’m graduating in a few months from Berkeley. I’m majoring in journalism and mass media.”

“That’s great,” Jess says with a nod.

“What do you even do with a degree in health studies?” Stephanie asks.

(hunt monsters. avenge your parents. get your boyfriend’s brother killed)

“Oh, I’m going to get a master’s in physical therapy. To be a physical therapist,” Jess answers, ignoring her jaded inner monologue. “I’m just taking some time off.”

“Sandy said you’ve been road tripping.”

“Yeah. With my boyfriend.”

“You didn’t bring him?”

“He’s with his brother,” she says with a shrug.

(i can hardly talk to this girl. i can hardly talk to any of these people. i have to stretch the truth and straight up lie so much.)

She misses Sam. Even misses Dean. At least she can just talk openly to both of them.

“I just broke up with my old boyfriend. Which like my dad is thrilled about. He hated the guy. His name was Stephen. He cheated on me with my roommate’s sister, can you believe? I was so mad when I found out. I could have shot him,” Stephanie laughs.

(yeah, i doubt you’ve ever touched a gun, and i doubt you would kill someone.)

(jessica, god damn, stop being a bitch. this girl is just trying to talk to you.)

She forces a smile. “That must’ve sucked. I’m sorry.”

“Have you ever been cheated on?”

“No, I’ve only ever dated one guy,” Jess admits. “Me and Sam started dating like… six years ago, I guess.”

“Sandy was saying you’re like waiting for him to propose. I was totally waiting for Stephen to propose before I dumped him. I mean, we dated for four years. An eternity.”

“Oh, ha, not-- I mean, I’m not in any hurry to get married, or anything, I don’t know if Sam is going to propose any time soon,” Jess says, stumbling over an awkward laugh. “We’re just having fun for now.”

(i wonder what he’s doing. i wonder if they’re doing christmas.)

“Are you usually here for Christmas?” Stephanie asks.

“No. Not since my mom and dad died,” Jess answers with a shrug.

“Oh, yeah. I usually go to my mom’s for Christmas, we do like this huge thing with all my cousins and everybody, but like, my mom and I got in a big fight recently. She thinks I’m stupid for wanting to move to Spain after I graduate. She thinks I need to come back to Ashland, where she lives-- it’s in Oregon-- but it’s such a podunk town, I’m tired of it. I want to see the world, you know? Anyway, she was like yelling at me on the phone recently, calling me stupid and all that, so I’m boycotting,” Stephanie rambles.

(oh my god. don’t be a bitch, jess. don’t do it.)

“If you want to go to Spain, you should go to Spain,” she settles for saying with another plaster-fake grin.

“Right! I’m only young for so long. Especially after what I went through with Stephen, that was such a wake up call to just do what I want.”

“Right. Yeah.”

“Wouldn’t you be absolutely devastated if Sam hooked up with some other girl? Who you introduced him to?”

“Sam wouldn’t do that,” she says with a shrug.

“Men are pigs, Jessica. You never know.”

“No, I know he wouldn’t do that.”

“Especially guys our age… they’re trash.”

Jess shrugs again. 

(why did i think coming here was a good idea? why did i think i’d be able to just slide back into my old life, as if i haven’t been through those things over the past few years?)

She feels like everything she does is casting up red flags. Like everyone is noticing how she doesn’t belong here. Like it’s taking all her energy just to assimilate, and she isn’t even doing a very good job.

She was always the tallest girl in school-- standing only two inches shy of six feet, she was taller than a lot of the boys, too. And as if that wasn’t enough, she was always the naive one too, the one whose parents didn’t let her watch R rated movies or stay out late or even go to sleepovers until all her peers had enjoyed those privileges for at least two years. She’d never had many friends growing up, and the ones she did have only thought of her as part of their secondary circle. And now, knowing what she knows about the world, and with a few years of hunting monsters under her belt, and even a human kill… she’s somehow even more abnormal than she’s ever been in her life.

(i just feel like a freak.)

Stephanie is talking about something else, Jess realizes. She politely interrupts with a thoughtless lie.

“I’m so sorry. I get these terrible migraines sometimes and I just need to sit in silence for a few minutes to get rid of it. I can feel one coming on. I’m going to go upstairs until dinner.”

“Oh, no way,” Stephanie says. “That sucks. You want some Tylenol?”

“Uh, no, thanks, I have a prescription. I’ll be back later.”

Her ears feel kind of hot as she makes her way up the stairs. She feels conspicuous. 

She flops down on the bed in the guest room, its squeaky iron bed frame chirping at her.

(when did it become overwhelming to talk to regular people?)

+

The few days she spends at her aunt and uncle’s house pass slowly. When they see her off the day after Christmas, they both implore her to keep in touch, to come back soon. She says she will, but it’s another lie.

(i don’t think i’ll be back here anytime soon. i just want to be with sam and figure out how to save his brother, she thinks to herself as she puts etna in her rearview mirror.)

Six hours later, when she pulls into the lakehouse driveway, Dean’s Impala is nowhere to be seen. The Winchester boys don’t show up for a few more hours-- and when they do, they’re in the middle of an argument.

“She’s our sister, Dean. Come on,” Sam says as he pushes through the door. 

Jess hops up from the couch by the fire, where she’d been reading, and wanders over.

“Half sister,” Dean corrects. “And we didn’t even know she existed until recently. Our dad certainly didn’t claim her. She’s not our responsibility.” 

“Hi, babe,” Sam says, ignoring his brother, coming to hug Jess. “How was your aunt and uncle’s?”

“Fine,” she answers, hugging him back briefly. “What are you guys arguing about?”

“Sam’s being nosy,” Dean accuses.

“I am not.”

“Are too.”

“About Jo?” Jess asks.

“Yeah. He wants to nose into her business with this Ruby chick. We told her to split from the demon, she won’t, we can’t make her. It’s time to leave well enough alone,” Dean insists.

“When have we ever left well enough alone?”

Jess rolls her eyes. “You guys, stop it. You’re both right. You don’t have to turn everything into a stupid man fight. Let’s just talk about this like adults.”

“Why do you bring _gender_ into everything?” Dean huffs.

“Because you guys fight like boys, and it’s annoying.”

Sam chuckles a little bit, rubbing at his face. “God, I missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” she says, reaching for his hand, smiling a little bit.

“Ew. Spare me.” Dean sets a paper grocery bag on the dining table and empties it-- a bottle of whiskey, a six pack of beer, a bag of frozen french fries, a box of donuts.

“I see we’re eating healthy tonight,” Sam observes bitchily. 

“I’m dying, Sammy. I’m not gonna sweat some cholesterol.” He cracks open the whiskey bottle as he carries it into the kitchen for a glass. 

“You’re not dying. We’re going to fix it,” Sam insists after him. He sighs before turning to face Jess. He leans down to kiss her, his hand cupping the side of her face. “Tell me you’re on my side about Jo,” he says, quiet enough that Dean won’t be able to hear from the kitchen.

“I don’t really know what to think, Sam. I hate demons just as much as you do, but I’ve been thinking about it since we talked to Bobby... you have to admit, Ruby acts differently than any other demon we’ve dealt with. I think Bobby’s right. We don’t have to like it, and we don’t have to trust her, but we might as well take her help when she offers it. And if we’re just judgemental of the situation, Jo won’t feel like she can ask for our help if Ruby turns on her.”

“ _When_ Ruby turns on her,” Sam corrects.

“She might be able to help us get Dean out of the demon deal,” Jess points out, sighing. “Look, we all keep changing our minds about this whole thing because it’s so goddamn weird. Like you said-- she saved Dean’s life the other day. And like Bobby said, we can’t kill her if she can help us. So for now, at least, let’s just not do anything.”

“Okay,” Sam sighs. “You’re right. As usual.”

“I know,” she says with a half smirk, reaching for him again. She catches his hand in hers-- his left hand, the one he hadn’t touched her face with. There’s a bandaid over the end of his pointer finger, soaked through with blood. “Whoa, what happened? Did you lose a nail?” She asks, frowning, looking at it closer.

“Yeah,” he says with a half-sigh, half-laugh. “It’s… yeah.”

“I thought I told you guys to celebrate Christmas.”

“We did,” Sam insists. “We just also sort of… solved a case. I’ll tell you all about it.”

+

After a stopover in the lakehouse, the three of them spend a couple days in Arizona, where they run into the guys from the tulpa case a few years back, just as annoying and cumbersome as ever. They manage to burn the bones and stop the haunting in spite of the obstacles, though.

While Sam is out picking up dinner on their last night in Arizona, Jess makes a quick call to Asa Fox to see if he has anything for her. He doesn’t.

Frustrated, she asks him if he knows anyone who might know anything useful about demons. But he’s already exhausted all his resources.

“Who was that on the phone?” Sam asks when she hurriedly hangs up as he comes back with the food.

(if she tells him she was talking to asa, she’ll have to explain who asa is, and to explain who asa is, she’ll have to come clean about meeting john back in sacramento. and that lie doesn’t really matter anymore. they have bigger fish to fry. anyway, it’s not like asa told her anything useful.)

“My aunt,” Jess lies easily. “Just checking in.”

+

Sam tracks down the alleged top professor of occultism in the country, who happens to be posted up at UCLA, so the three of them head there next. But after about thirty seconds of talking to the guy in his office (a cramped room decked out with animal bones and other creepy artifacts), it becomes clear he doesn’t actually believe in demons.

So they head back up to Tahoe and settle in to do some more research.

“It’s a lost cause, you guys,” Dean says through a mouth full of pizza their first night back. He swallows. “Look, obviously I wanna get out of going to hell, and I appreciate the SAT prep, but if I have limited time left I wanna hunt.”

“Give us a few more days,” Sam says tensely. “We got those books the professor said to read-- just let us work through them.”

“Alright, alright.”

After dinner, Jess and Sam bury themselves in the library, reading, taking notes, cross-referencing-- trying to read between the lines to find some sort of legitimate solution. One of the books is a collection of true retellings of demon sightings, and while Jess clocks at least two-thirds of the stories as fiction or misunderstandings of hauntings, she does find a few that seem real. One of them was written by a woman who fell in love with a man at first sight, and married him that same day back in 1958-- and then on their tenth anniversary, he started acting paranoid and talking about demons and hellhounds, and then the next morning she woke up to find him dead in their backyard, like he’d been ripped up by some animal. She chalked it up as a psychotic break, but after his death, when she was looking through his things, she found pages and pages of research about demons and how to kill them. He’d been keeping journals on the subject their entire marriage, and a whole filing cabinet full of book clippings and notes and newspaper articles.

(he researched for ten years, writing in dozens of journals, reading through books and learning about omens and everything, and he still didn’t get out of it in time, jess thinks to herself, frowning, as she closes the book. we only have a couple months left.)

(but then again we have more resources. we have the internet, and he was just one guy-- there’s three of us, plus bobby and asa and ash and jo and ellen. dean has a lot of people on his case.)

She sighs.

“What, honey?” Sam asks, glancing up from his book.

She shakes her head. “Just another dead end. I’m gonna get some fresh air.”

He nods, and she gets up from the table, stopping to set her hand on his shoulder and lean down for a kiss on her way out. 

(i want to save dean for is own sake, she mulls over in her mind, and for ben’s of course, but now that i know how important dean is to sam… watching him lose his big brother would be devastating. we have to figure this out.)

She hears the TV by the time she’s halfway down the stairs, and a weird, lazy laugh coming from the couch. It takes her a second to even recognize the laugh as belonging to Dean. 

“You okay over there?” She calls as she makes it to the ground floor.

He doesn’t answer, so she heads around the corner to the TV room-- he’s sprawled on the couch in front of an old Scooby Doo cartoon.

“Dean?”

He jumps a little, fumbling to turn to face her, red-eyed and droopy.

She glances from his face to the TV to the bag of chips open on the coffee table.

“Are you stoned?” She asks, laughing, covering her mouth.

“Hell, yeah, I’m fuckin’ stoned,” he drawls, laughing a little with her. “I’m gonna die. I might as well have fun while I can.”

“No arguments here,” she says, holding her palms up in surrender. “Scooby Doo, though? Really?”

“Always had a crush on Daphne,” he mumbles, turning back to the TV. “And Fred.”

“Fred? Seriously?”

“Who’d you have a crush on in Scooby Doo?”

“The old rich guys in the monster costumes,” Jess deadpans.

Dean bursts into laughter so intense, she thinks he might pull a muscle. He almost falls off the couch.

“Alright. Well, I’ll leave you to it. Just drink some water, okay? You’re going to get dry mouth.”

“How do you know about dry mouth?” He demands.

She shrugs, turning her eyes upward. “I was in college once. I’ve smoked a few joints in my time.”

“Hell fuckin’ yeah you have! That’s what I’m talking about!” He claps his hands together loudly. “I guess you aren’t as boring as my baby brother after all.”

She just laughs a little, and turns to go back upstairs, electing not to mention Sam’s substance run-ins to his brother.

But before she can make it to the bottom of her stairs, her phone rings from her pocket. When she digs it out and checks the screen, she sees a name she wasn’t expecting: Asa Fox.

Frowning a little, heading for the deck outside, she flips it open. “Hey, Asa.”

“Hi. I know we just talked and I said I had nothing, but I was just looking through some old pictures,” he says, “and I thought of a story my old hunting buddy used to tell. Something you might want to hear about.”

She perks up a little, glancing over her shoulder at Dean through the window. “I’m listening.”

+

The next day, she makes an excuse about needing to go to the eye doctor in Sacramento. She says she’s had the appointment for months, that she thought she’d mentioned it to Sam-- he’s confused, because last he heard, Jess has 20/20 vision, and anyway, isn’t there an eye doctor closer than Sacramento? But she manages to placate him.

(i should have said it was the dentist, she thinks as she climbs into the cav alone.)

After a two hour drive, she makes it to the Nevada rest stop. Ruby is already there, sitting on the hood of Jo’s car, flipping through a magazine.

“Hi,” Jess says as she gets out of the Cav. “Thanks for meeting with me. Especially on such short notice.”

“I was in the area,” Ruby says with a shrug. “What’s so important you couldn’t tell me over the phone?”

Jess reaches into her bag and produces the papers she’d stopped at a public library to print-- Asa’s old hunting buddy’s scanned, handwritten notes from 1985, which he’d emailed to her last night. She offers them to Ruby.

“What is this?” Ruby asks, frowning.

“It’s an ancient druid ritual. A friend of a friend claims to have seen it work,” Jess says. 

“To make a copy of your soul and send it to hell in your place,” Ruby reads out loud. Her eyes narrow as she continues to read through the notes.

“Yeah. The guy who sent this to me, he said his father did this ritual to get out of a demon deal in the 80s and it worked. It makes a sort of avatar of you, and you can trick the crossroad demon with it, and they’ll take the fake soul copy instead. You just have to hide from them in a salt circle in a church while the hellhounds take the fake soul.”

Ruby sighs, handing the pages back to Jess. “You didn’t seriously fall for this, did you?”

“I thought… it sounded kind of realistic. I thought it was worth looking into,” Jess says, her shoulders falling a little. “Are you saying it’s fake?”

“No, it’s real. This ritual… graveyard dirt, holy water, blood of a righteous man, ground wood of acacia, spread on the left palm, this incantation… this is the real deal. It just won’t make a copy of your soul. It’s a ritual to harness the power of any demon who tries to possess you.”

Jess blinks. “What?”

“Yeah. Not the most useful thing ever because you would have to anticipate the possession by at least a day for it to work. Whoever claimed you can duplicate a human soul was lying for clout. That concept is just ridiculous. You could never even make a half-decent counterfeit soul, let alone pass it off as real to a demon. Demons _deal_ in souls, Jess,” Ruby scoffs. “They’re experts. You can’t _trick_ them.”

(maybe we _should_ just kill her.)

Exhaling hard, Jess stuffs the papers back into her bag. “Alright. Thanks for debunking it, I guess.”

“You can’t get him out of this deal,” the demon says, the glare of her steely eyes feeling heavy against Jess’ face. “There’s nothing you can do. The crossroad demon who made it isn’t even the one who holds it.”

“Who holds it, then?” Jess demands.

“Lilith. She holds every deal.”

“The demon Jo told Bobby about,” Jess remembers. “The one who wants me and Sam dead.”

“You guessed it. So I wouldn’t try to fuck with her, if I were you.” Ruby takes Jo’s keys out of her pocket, and turns back toward the car. “I’m out of here. Jo’s waiting for me.”

She drives off. 

“Motherfucker,” Jess huffs, kicking at a pebble on the ground. She rubs at her face.

This was her only lead.

+

The next day, the three of them leave Tahoe and head out to Oklahoma to investigate a mysterious death. Two weeks later, the cursed object that had caused the death salted and burned, they head to Chicago to meet with a theology and occultism professor Sam had read about online.

Much like her colleague at UCLA, this academic isn’t helpful either.

When Sam and Jess make their way back to the quad where Dean is waiting, before they can even tell him what the professor had said, he’s talking.

“Bobby called with a case. It’s in Ohio so we’re close. Phones going haywire.”

“Dean, we’re already on a case,” Sam huffs.

Dean blinks. “What case?”

“Yours,” Jess points out.

“Listen, you were about to tell me Dr. so and so didn’t have shit for me, aren’t you?”

Jess and Sam exchange a sheepish glance.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought. Dead end after dead end,” Dean says with a shrug. “So we hunt. Okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, fine,” Sam sighs. “What’s the case?”

+

According to his widow, the dead man had gotten a call from someone named Linda-- which just so happened to be the name of his high school sweetheart who died in a tragic car accident their senior year. After several of these calls, the man shot himself in the throat.

A trip to the phone company places the number as being out of order for years, but after Dean uses some intimidation tactics on the guy working, he traces the number anyway. It’s been used to call ten different houses in the past two weeks.

They start tracking the people. A teenage girl who admits to getting calls from her dead mother, an older widow who needs very little encouragement to recount her R-rated phone calls with her husband, who died in the Korean war.

A couple days into the case, Dean shows up at Sam and Jess’ motel door, a weird look in his eyes, a little out of breath.

“Dude, what’s going on?” Sam asks as he lets his brother in. Jess looks up from her laptop.

“I just got a call from Dad.”

“...What?”

“Yeah,” Dean confirms with a nod. “He called me. We talked for a minute, but then the line went dead before he could really say anything.”

“Did he say where he is?” Sam asks, frowning hard.

“Hell.”

“He called you from Hell,” Jess repeats.

“Yeah. What do I say if he calls back?”

Sam shrugs. “Hello?”

“Cute,” Dean says, his face falling. 

“Look, Dean, we have a lead on something at the local Edison museum,” Sam says. “We’re going to go read for EMF in half an hour. Are you coming?”

“Nah,” he says, rubbing at his mouth, avoiding Sam’s eyes. “I’m gonna check on that last house, I guess.”

+

The Edison museum is a bust. Sam and Jess get a call from the teenage girl with the dead mother, though, so they head over to check on her afterwards. Turns out, she’s getting instant messages from her mother now, too. And they all say ‘come to me’.

“So the calls are driving people to kill themselves,” Sam says as they walk away from the girl’s house and get back into his car. “Preying on the victims’ grief.”

“Yeah, it looks like it.”

“Do you think it’s actually the spirits of the dead?” Sam asks. “Ghosts kind of go insane and vengeful after a while, anyway. Maybe they get lonely, too.”

“I don’t know,” Jess sighs.

They meet back up with Dean in his motel room the next day, and when they come in he’s on his laptop, taking fervent notes.

“What’s with the note taking?” Sam asks, laughing a little.

“Look at this,” he says, turning the computer around. “Weather reports. Electrical storms have been following us for two weeks, Sammy. And dead cows.”

“Dead cows,” Sam repeats.

“Like, omens?” Jess asks, frowning a little, stepping closer to take a look at Dean’s sloppily-written notes.

“The demon is following us,” Dean says, wide-eyed. “Dad called me again. He said he knows an exorcism to kill a demon. Not just send it back to Hell-- actually kill it.”

“Dean… how would Dad know about that?”

“He’s been down there for two years, don’t you think the guy knows a thing or two?” Dean insists.

“Doesn’t it seem a little fishy to you? All of a sudden, our dead father calls you with an answer to your biggest problem?”

“No. There’s something in this town that lets the dead contact their loved ones, Sam. We’ve seen much crazier shit.”

Jess glances between the boys. Between Dean’s hopeful face, and Sam’s frustrated one.

“You’re going on blind faith,” Sam criticizes. 

“You’re the one who’s so obsessed with trying to get me out of this deal,” Dean huffs. “Even though you know it’s risky to mess with it. And now that I actually have a real lead, you won’t listen?”

“Who knows if it even is Dad on the other end, or if his information is good? We can’t trust these calls,” Sam insists.

“Just take it with a grain of salt, okay, Dean?” Jess suggests, trying to diffuse the tension. Her phone starts buzzing from her pocket. “I’m gonna step outside a second. Hold on.”

The boys are already arguing again by the time she makes it to the door, but she ignores them. Once she’s outside, she answers her phone.

“Hello.”

“Hi, bug.”

Her eyes go wide.

“Mom?” She hears herself ask, voice small, shakey. She hasn’t heard her mother’s voice in years, but she recognizes it right away.

“It’s me,” her mom says tearfully. “Your father’s here too.”

Jess’ hand moves without instruction. She covers her mouth. Glances around the parking lot, as if someone is going to jump out with a reality TV camera or something. “I don’t… where are you guys?”

“Heaven,” her dad’s voice answers. “We miss you so much, Jessica.”

“I miss you guys too,” she says, her eyes stinging a little, her voice catching in her throat.

(it might not really be them. it might not be. anyway who says heaven is real at all?)

“We’ve been watching over you,” her mother continues. “We’re so proud of you.”

The tears leak out of her eyes, streaming down her face. “Is it really you?”

“Of course it is, ladybug,” her dad says. 

(a monster wouldn’t know about their nickname for me.)

She swallows a sob.

“We have to tell you something,” her mother says urgently. “That’s why we called. It’s about Sam’s brother.”

“What?” She asks, forgetting about the crying.

“I asked around Heaven,” she says. “What Sam and Dean’s dad told him about the exorcism, it’s true. He can use it to get out of his demon deal.”

“How?” She asks.

(heaven, her mind repeats again-- heaven is real? i guess if hell is real…)

“The demon is only a few miles away,” Jess’ father says. “You can kill him tonight.”

“But… the demon who made the deal doesn’t hold it,” Jess says, frowning, wiping at the spent tears on her cheeks. “Lilith holds it.”

“Lilith is only a few miles away from you, bug,” Jess’ mother says.

Jess nods. “Okay. Tell me what to do.”

+

“Who was that on the phone?” Sam asks when she lets herself back into the motel room a moment later. 

“It was Lanie,” Jess lies. “The girl with the dead mom. She said she’s getting more messages. Her brother is, too. Can you go check on them, Sam? I’m going back to the phone company. I have an idea.”

“What’s your idea?”

“No time right now. Just go with me on this one,” she says.

Sam nods, reaching for his jacket. He leaves.

“Need me to come to the phone company?” Dean asks.

She shakes her head. “We aren’t going to the phone company. That wasn’t Lanie on the phone. It was my parents.”

“Your parents?”

Jess nods. “I know it was really them because they called me this nickname only they ever use. They said they asked around heaven. Your dad’s information is good, and I know where to find Lilith. I had to get rid of Sam because he would stop us.”

Dean is already standing, closing his laptop, before she’s even done. He doesn’t bother questioning the fact that she asserted Heaven’s existence. “Then what are we waiting for?”

+

They break into the house, paint the devil’s trap under a rug in the living room, and set up the silver flask of holy water. 

“I think this dude is married,” Dean comments as they wait around for him.

“Huh?”

“The dude the demon is possessing,” Dean clarifies. “I don’t think a guy would have velvet throw pillows or candles or fashion magazines in his living room.”

Jess glances around the room. It’s nicely decorated and cozy, and while she wants to be annoyed with his generalizations, he has a point. “Hopefully she doesn’t show up. If she does, I guess we…” Jess trails off.

Dean shrugs. “Tie her to a chair and take her phone so she can’t call for help?”

“Yeah, I guess so. And then kill her husband right in front of her. Cool.”

“Hey, we don’t know if the meat suit is still breathing. Maybe after we do the kill exorcism, the vessel will be fine.”

“Maybe,” she says with a nod.

(we’re really racking up a body count over here.)

“I think I just heard a car outside. Places?”

Jess nods, and they take their positions, Dean by the living room entrance, Jess off to the side so he won’t see that there’s two of them right away.

They stand there, silent and still, for what feels like several minutes. But eventually, the man turns up. 

He stands for a moment, dumbfounded, staring at Dean. Then he takes a few steps, landing himself in the center of the perfectly-placed devil’s trap.

“Crux sacra sit mihi lux,” Dean begins reading. “Non draco sit mihi dux Vade retro satana.”

“What the hell is this?” The man asks frantically. The area rug had shifted in his commotion, revealing the side of the devil’s trap. He moves it aside. “Did you do this to my daughter too?”

“Numquam suade mihi vana,” Dean continues reading, louder, his tone hard. Jess clutches the holy water flask tightly. 

“Is this what you did, you motherfucker? Some kind of satanic sacrifice? Is that what you did to my little girl?” The man yells, reaching for Dean’s throat, leaving the devil’s trap--

“Sunt mala quae libas--” Dean chokes out, trying to shove the guy off of him.

(leaving the devil’s trap?)

“Dean,” Jess says, fumbling to cap the holy water. “Dean, it’s not him.” She helps him push the guy off, reaching for her gun, pointing it at him. He freezes.

“How did you get out of the devil’s trap?” She demands. 

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Dean frowns hard. He crumbles up the paper with the incantation on it and shoves it into his pocket. “Cristo?”

“Stop it with your Latin crap!” The man screams. “You killed my daughter!” He whirls around to face Jess-- or rather, to face Jess’ navy blue Colt. “She told me! She told me you were coming back for me!”

(oh, god dammit.)

“I think this is a mistake,” Jess says, trying to keep her tone even. “Dean, he’s not a demon.”

“We didn’t kill your daughter, pal,” Dean huffs. 

The man decks Dean in the face.

“Motherfucker,” he grunts, stumbling a little. “I didn’t kill her. I swear.”

“Then what the fuck are you doing here?”

“I don’t know!” Dean yells back.

“Listen to me,” Jess asserts, straightening her aim on the man. “Just let us walk out of here and no one gets hurt. We were wrong. We had the wrong house. Okay? We didn’t kill your daughter. This is a misunderstanding.”

“Okay,” the guy says weakly. “Okay.”

Slowly, gun still pointed at him, Jess backs toward the door. Dean follows.

“Son of a bitch,” he mutters once they’re outside. But although Jess has heard him utter this exact phrase a million times, he doesn’t sound like himself. He sounds small. He sounds despondent. 

+

While they were on their stupid red herring goose chase, Sam actually finished solving the case. It turned out to be a monster called a crocotta, mimicking loved ones, telling victims exactly what they want to hear. Because it feasts on the souls of those who kill themselves. It used to whisper in the woods, Sam explains as Dean ices his bruised cheekbone, but ever since phone technology took off, it’s been eating better than ever.

And Jess and Dean both fell for it.

Feeling stupid, Jess rips up a fast food receipt just for something to do with her hands.

“Listen,” Dean says quietly as Sam and Jess are leaving his motel room after Sam finishes explaining. “We’ve exhausted every lead we had. My time’s running out. I was talking to Ben on the phone the other day, and he said he has this Thursday and Friday off school for conferences or some shit. So in the morning I’m gonna drive to Cicero and pick him up and take him to a theme park or something.”

He doesn’t say it, and although Jess’ demonic intuition is gone, she can practically hear Dean’s epilogue to that comment.

(i’m gonna spend one last weekend with my kid.)

She shivers.

“Okay,” Sam says softly. “Yeah. We’ll be around. Have fun with Ben, and call when you’re ready to meet back up.”

+

While Dean is on his trip with Ben, Jess and Sam pour all of their energy into looking for more demonologists and theologists to talk to and researching more online and in libraries. They drive to New York to raid the NYU library, which turns up nothing. 

On Sunday, the last day before Dean is going to call them to figure out where to meet up next, Sam finds a possible lead in Erie, Pennsylvania. A man killed on a midnight run, his liver stolen, with bloody finger prints left on the corpse that belong to a man who died in 1981.

“You think it’s some kind of organ-eating monster?” Jess asks. “Or livers specifically? Maybe when the man died he turned into the monster, like the rugaru thing.”

“No. There’s more to it than that,” Sam says, his eyes widening a little in excitement. “Because there’s another organ theft in Erie, too. Some guy’s kidney was stolen.”

“Okay,” Jess says slowly. “So?”

“He woke up with maggots on the wound,” Sam goes on, reaching for a leatherbound notebook-- John’s journal. “And it was tied up with silk thread. My dad was on a case exactly like this when I was a kid.” He flicks through the journal for a moment until he finds the entry. When he hands it to Jess, she reads the title on the page: DR. BENTON. “This guy’s like… discovered the secret to immortality.”

“By stealing other people’s organs and stuffing them into his own body?” She asks, cringing. “That’s so fucked up. Didn’t your dad kill him?”

“My dad cut his heart out, but apparently the doc had another one on hand or something,” Sam says with a shrug. “Either that or someone learned from what he did and they’re copying him. Either way, we might be able to use whatever magic he uses on Dean,” Sam says eagerly. “We gotta check it out.”

“I don’t know if Dean is going to go for that,” she says, frowning.

“I’ll tell him it’s a zombie case. He’ll be sprinting to Erie right away.”

She doesn’t stop him. It sounds crazy, but she figures she and Sam are the reason Dean is even in this mess, so they owe it to him to look into anything that could be helpful. Even if he’s against it.

+

Dean meets them in Erie on the promises of zombies two days later. The case is messy, and the doctor tries to steal Sam’s eyes at one point, but they learn that he isn’t doing any magic. It’s just science. And like Jess could have predicted, Dean refuses to even try it on himself if it means killing people.

So they bury the doctor alive. And they go on their way.

+

In the last few weeks before his time is up, Dean stops sleeping in his room at the lakehouse. Jess finds him passed out on the TV room couch, or sleeping in a chair in the library like an old man, or curled up in the Impala with his face squished against the window. The first few times, she figures it was an accident. But then, when she hears him come out of his room in the middle of the night, and finds him slumped on the couch the next morning, she thinks it might be a deliberate choice. 

Especially when he wakes up, scrambling, frantic, reaching for the gun he’d left on the coffee table.

Jess blinks.

(he’s paranoid.)

“Morning,” she offers from the kitchen, where she’d been making coffee.

He whips around to face her, breath uneven, eyes wide and alert. His shoulders deflate a little. “Morning,” he mutters, rubbing at his face. 

“Coffee will be ready in a minute.”

“Great,” he says with a jagged sigh. “Uh… where’s my brother?”

“He went out for a run.”

Dean nods a few times, pulling air into his lungs. Then, he takes his pearl-handled Colt and stands up. “I’m gonna take a shower.”

“With your gun?” Jess asks, but he’s halfway to the stairs, and he ignores her.

+

They sit around the lakehouse, helpless, nothing to really do. Dean gets stoned in front of Scooby Doo a few more times. Jess and Sam continue their pointless research, pretending not to notice how often Dean looks over his shoulder or the fact that he carries his gun around the house now.

And then, right before his time is up, Bobby calls.

“I might have something,” he says, loud enough for Jess to hear even though Sam isn’t using speaker phone. “We can track Lilith. With the new bullets I made for the Colt, we just might be able to kill her.”

“You made new bullets that actually work?” Sam asks. 

“Yeah. They seem to. Ruby helped me.”

“Right.” Sam exhales, glancing Jess’ way. “Okay. What do we do?”

“You kids are still at the house on Lake Tahoe, right? I’ll be there in a few hours. Then we’ll get going. I just need the address.”

Sam gives it to him, and hangs up with a quick “see you soon”.

“You really think this will work?” Jess asks as he slides his phone back into his pocket.

“It has to,” Sam says. “I’m gonna go tell Dean.”

+

Bobby shows up with the setup for his tracking spell a little while later, and the four of them set it up on the dining table.

“We might have to fly somewhere, boy,” he comments, glancing at Dean.

“Oh, great. Just the way I wanna spend my last hours. Sitting on an airplane with my asshole clenched.”

“We’ll do what we have to do,” Sam says seriously. “How precise is this spell, Bobby?”

“Should give us the damn street address, more or less,” he says, looking down at the map of the continental U.S. in front of them. “Unless she’s in a different country. Then we’re up shit’s creek without a paddle.”

“Here’s hoping the bitch is under a star-spangled banner, then,” Dean says.

Bobby performs the spell, reading off the latin incantation, and it indicates her exact location. Princeton, Oregon, in a new housing development.

“That oughta be about a six hour drive,” Bobby comments as the needle settles on the map.

“Five hours, the way I drive. Let’s go.”

+

Jess and Sam pile into the Impala with him, and Bobby follows in his car, which looks like junk but seems to run way smoother than it should.

(that’s kind of smart, jess thinks, figuring bobby must’ve fixed it up himself, being that he still fixes cars on the side. kind of the perfect hunting car. it’s urban camouflage.) 

They make it to Princeton late that evening, parking the two cars at the edge of the housing development. The neighborhood screams 2.5 kids and a picket fence, with its manicured lawns, its perfectly-painted houses, and its neat little cul-de-sac. Though it’s almost 9pm, there are a few people milling about outside.

“It’s that big green house,” Bobby says once they’re all standing between his car and the Impala. 

Dean turns to look, but he recoils hard, losing his breath.

“Dude, what?” Sam asks nervously, grabbing his brother’s arm.

“Demons,” Dean gasps. “All of ‘em. Holy fuck.”

“How can you tell?” Jess asks, frowning, tallying up the stragglers in her head-- a mailman, a lady sitting on her porch, a guy watering his front yard.

“I can see their faces. I… fuck. They’re hideous.”

(if it’s enough to scare a guy like dean…)

Jess frowns harder, reaching over to take his hand for a second. She squeezes it. “We have the Colt and a ton of holy water,” she reminds him.

He gives a quick head shake, pulling away from both Sam and Jess’ touch. 

“Here,” Bobby says, handing Dean a pair of binoculars. “See if you can get a look into the green house and ID Lilith.”

He does, and the other three just sort of stare at him. After a moment, he cringes again, lowering the binoculars.

“It’s a kid,” he says, shaking his head. “A little girl. Around Ben’s age. God, her face...”

“Who the hell is Ben?” Bobby asks.

Jess and Sam both glance between Dean and Bobby, a little surprised, both of them having figured Dean had mentioned it to Bobby at some point.

“My… kid?” Dean hazards, like the answer will get him in trouble.

“You have a damn son?” Bobby demands. “And you never thought to mention that?”

“Guilty,” he says with an uneasy shrug. “It never came up.”

“It never came up? That’s the kinda thing you _bring_ up, Dean. I was never gonna just ask you if you happened to father a child. Don’t you think I’d wanna know that? Don’t you think I’d wanna meet him?”

There’s real hurt in Bobby’s tone. Jess has the feeling it’s not just about Ben. It’s about what’s happening with Dean, too.

“I’m sorry, Bobby. I should’ve told you. If it makes you feel better my dad never knew and I only told Sammy less than a year ago.” He shrugs uncomfortably again. “Uh, point is, Lilith is possessing a third grader.”

“That’s fucked up,” Sam says. 

“Well… she _is_ a demon,” Jess points out. “Not the worst thing we’ve heard of a demon doing.”

Another car turns the corner, its headlights getting caught in Jess’ eyes. Once she recovers, she recognizes the car-- the 90s grey sedan that belongs to Jo Harvelle.

“What the hell are they doing here?” Dean demands as Jo and Ruby get out of the car.

“I texted Jo,” Sam admits.

“You what?”

“Ruby has that knife. I thought they could help,” Sam defends.

“And you didn’t think to ask me what I thought of that little idea?”

“I knew you would be against it,” Sam says. “Anyway. We have to move. We’re running out of time.”

+

After a brief team meeting, they make a plan to use Dean as demon bait so Sam can jump out and kill the demons as they chase past him. It works, and they make it into the house, Jo and Bobby standing guard outside with Jo’s weapon of choice-- a neon orange super soaker filled with holy water.

The little girl’s dad is in the living room when they enter the house, and he starts to panic, but Dean shoves a hand over the guy’s mouth.

“We’re here to help,” he whispers. “So you’re not gonna scream. I’m gonna move my hand and we’re gonna talk nice and quiet, okay?”

The man gives an uneasy nod. Dean moves his hand.

“Where’s your daughter, sir?” Sam asks quietly.

“It’s not her anymore,” he whispers. “She killed both my wife’s parents and the dog, she’s holding us hostage-”

“We know it isn’t your daughter,” Jess whispers back. 

“She’s upstairs in her bedroom. My wife is reading her a bedtime story.”

“We’re going to take care of it,” Jess assures him. “But you need to get down into the basement and put a salt line in the doorway.”

“Not without my wife,” the man protests.

“Yes without your wife,” Dean argues, though Jess was already conceding with the man in her head, trying to think of a way to retrieve the wife without causing problems-- but the man had started to protest again, and before Jess can think of anything to say, Dean punches his lights out.

“Subtle, Dean, real subtle,” Sam huffs.

“He’ll be fine. I’m gonna take him downstairs and set up the salt. You three go find the girl,” Dean instructs.

With a few eye rolls, Ruby, Sam, and Jess head upstairs. Jess tries not to look at the freshly-dead old man slumped at the dining table as they pass him.

It’s a big house, so it takes them a second to find the room.

“I’m going to see if she has any others hiding up here,” Ruby whispers. “You two go in.”

Sam nods, tightening his grip on her knife, and he and Jess carefully slip into the room.

The little girl’s mother is laying next to her on the bed, the sleeping child’s head on her chest. She makes eye contact with Sam, and then Jess, and then carefully glances down at her sleeping daughter before setting her eyes on the jagged antler-handled knife in Sam’s hand. She gives a short nod.

(we can’t just kill a kid, though…)

(but if we exorcise lilith she’ll get away.)

(fuck.)

“Do it,” the mom whispers, barely audible. Jess glances to Sam. He’s hesitating.

He takes an uneasy step closer, looking down at the knife, then back to the sleeping little girl.

“Do it,” the mom says again, a little louder, voice raspy, fear wide in her brown eyes.

Slowly, Sam raises the knife.

But then there are footsteps in the hall, and Dean bursts in. “Don’t do it, Sammy, it’s not in her anymore!”

The little girl wakes up suddenly, and screams, and Jess can tell it’s just a normal kid even without Dean’s ability. She backs away, horrified, grabbing Sam’s arm to pull him with her.

“Mommy! What’s happening!”

“It’s okay, baby, it’s okay,” the woman soothes, her eyes still wide with fear. She glances up to Sam.

“I’ll take you two downstairs,” he says. “Your husband’s there. He’s safe. We’re going to take care of this.”

The mom gives a solemn nod, and he leads them away.

Sighing, Jess rubs at her face.

“Hey, blondie?” Dean asks quietly once the others are gone.

She moves her hands and turns her eyes toward him. He looks exhausted. “Yeah?”

“If this thing goes south… if they take me,” he says, his green eyes wide and sincere, planted hard on her. “You’ll… take care of Sammy for me, right?”

Her heart swells uncomfortably. She has to swallow hard before responding. “Of course I will, Dean.”

He gives a quick nod, glancing away from her, and wipes his hand over his mouth. “I’m glad he has you. I’m glad he won’t be alone.”

“There’s still time,” she says, almost cutting him off, her voice unsteady.

“Another thing,” Dean says, as if he didn’t hear her. “You guys gotta take care of my wheels. Don’t you let Sam douche her up.”

She gives a shaky laugh, and he slings his arm around her shoulders for a second, leading her out of the room. 

+

Midnight is dangerously close. And as far as any of them can tell, Lilith up and left.

As the four of them-- Jess, Dean, Sam, and Ruby-- are reconvening in the living room, Dean jumps, whirling around.

“What?” Jess asks a little breathlessly, having heard nothing.

“Hellhounds,” Ruby explains. “We gotta hole up.”

“Will they hurt Jo and Bobby outside?” Sam asks.

“No. They’re safe. I wouldn’t have left Jo out there if I thought otherwise,” Ruby says as if Sam’s question is the stupidest thing she’s ever heard. “Come on.”

They find a room with only one window, a small office, and barricade the door with some dust Ruby produces from a pouch in her pocket. Jess fumbles for a light.

When she finds one, though, they realize they aren’t alone.

“Hi,” a young woman’s voice comes, and the office chair swivels around to reveal its source. Her blue eyes go sickly white.

For a second, Jess thinks it’s Jo. (no, that’s stupid, there’s no way jo doesn’t have some kind of anti-posession charm on her.)

The young blonde woman stands up, smiling, revealing a mouth full of braces. And Jess realizes she’s even younger than Jo-- maybe eighteen or nineteen years old.

“Lilith,” Ruby snarls.

“Fuck,” Dean mutters.

Grinning widely, Lilith wanders toward the door. She starts to undo the barricade. Jess tries to stop her, but finds that she can’t move-- and a glance around the room confirms that everyone else is frozen still, too. She opens her mouth to scream for Bobby and Jo outside, but she can’t do that either.

Once the barricade is gone, the door flies open. Jess can’t see the hellhounds. But she watches in horror as they pull Dean to the floor, ripping at him, blooming crimson blood from his chest, relentless in their destruction. Dean cries out in pain and fear. All Jess and Sam can do is move their eyes.

Dean goes still. His green eyes go glassy. He’s dead, his chest ripped open in a bloody mess, his mouth still open.

(none of us can move our mouths. she must have unfrozen dean’s just to watch him scream, jess thinks numbly.)

The demonic grip on her is loosened, though, and she reaches for Sam. He’s already halfway to his brother’s dead body.

Lilith conjures a heavy white light in her hands. But then the light vanishes, and in a burst of hideous black smoke, Lilith is ejected from her vessel. The girl crumbles to the floor, dead, and the black smoke dissolves into nothing. When it clears, Ruby is behind it.

“What the fuck was that?” Jess asks, breathless, glancing from Ruby to Sam, who’s on the floor, holding Dean’s shoulders.

“Witchcraft,” Ruby answers simply. “She was going to kill you, so I blasted her away. You guys should be good for forty-eight hours or so, which gives you plenty of time to get the hell out of here.”

She turns and leaves the room. Jess is left with Dean’s spent corpse and Sam’s sobbing, shaking frame.

+

She drives the Impala, Dean’s body wrapped in a sheet from the house in the trunk, Sam in the passenger seat. He says nothing. She hardly wants to look at him.

Her chest is tight. She wants it to be over. Wants to go home so she can try to put Sam back together, like she’d promised his brother she would.

They find an empty stretch of woods somewhere in eastern Oregon. They bury Dean’s body-- Sam insists on burial, even though the standard practice for a hunter is salting and burning.

Once the deed is done, and the makeshift grave is marked with a cross Sam makes out of sticks, Bobby gives Jess and Sam each a hug and leaves for Sioux Falls. 

Jess drives them south to Tahoe. It’s not far, and she’s grateful for that. Sam spends the drive in a continued pursuit of his silence, his head leaned against the window, his eyes screwed shut. But Jess knows he’s not sleeping-- his breathing is too quiet.

As they make their way to the lake, she notices a black cord around his neck. He’d swiped Dean’s amulet at some point. Probably took the pearl-handled pistol out of Dean’s pocket, too. Maybe even the thick silver ring and the skull beaded bracelet and the leather cord bracelet off his hands, though he isn’t wearing any of these items.

Sam doesn’t stir until she parks Dean’s car next to the blue Chevy Cavalier Sam had bought when she had first started dating him back at Stanford. 

He walks to the house with her, clumsy, like he’s drunk. When they get inside, he just sort of stands there, like he doesn’t know what to do.

(i know that feeling, she thinks, her heart breaking all over again as she remembers the day she found out her parents died. the way she clung to him, her head empty, for who knows how long.)

So she reaches her hand to his shoulder, and gently guides him to the couch Dean had been sleeping on just days before. He lets her. They sit down, and it only takes about ten seconds for him to collapse into the fetal position, his head on her lap, sobbing hard.

She strokes his overgrown hair. Rubs his back. But she doesn’t say anything.

(there’s nothing i could possibly say that will make this okay.)


	7. first half of season four

SEASON FOUR.

The first few weeks after Dean’s death are rough. Sam spends a lot of the time crying, or taking extra long showers, or going on solo hikes or swims. He only eats because Jess makes him. They don’t even talk about the possibility of hunting.

In fact, they hardly talk at all.

Jess isn’t much better herself. Guilt has almost completely defined her life over the past few years, and now she has a fresh dose of it. If she were on her own, she would hunt to keep herself busy. But Sam needs her.

(god, she thinks while she washes dishes one day that first week, we’re going to have to tell ben at some point. we’re going to have to drive to indiana and sit him down and explain that his dad is dead. do we tell him the truth? make up some lie about a car accident or a brain aneurysm? how do you tell a nine year old kid he has to grow up without his father?)

She shudders.

(no reason to rush it. we’ll go when sam feels up to it.)

She picks up a glass to put it in the dishwasher, and as she moves it, the scent of whiskey wafts through the air. She frowns.

Sam has been drinking more than usual. Sleeping less. Most nights over the first few weeks, Jess goes to bed alone, and he doesn’t come until the middle of the night. He’s miserable, and any effort she makes to comfort him only seems to go so far.

And then, one day, almost six weeks after that night in Oregon, he takes one of his crazy-long showers… but then he wanders over to Jess with clippers in one hand, scissors and a comb in the other.

“Will you cut my hair?”

She turns her paperback upside down and stands, nodding, smiling. “Yeah. It looks ridiculous. I’d be delighted to make it look halfway decent.”

He laughs a little at her jab, and she follows him to the kitchen. He drags a dining table chair in, puts a towel around his shoulders, and she gets to work.

His hair had gotten pretty long. It had always been shaggy since she met him, but now he was going for his personal record, with it grazing his collar and flopping into his face.

She’s no expert. But she manages to get it looking pretty good, cropped short in the back, a little longer in the front and on the top. 

When she’s done with his, she takes a look at her own hair. She’s always liked it long, and she still does, but there are a few inches of dead ends that need to go. So she gives herself a haircut next, and then sweeps up the mess, blonde curls mixed in with chestnut clippings.

After that, Sam starts acting a little more like himself. Sleeping normal hours. Inviting Jess on his hikes and swims. Eating without being reminded.

And over the next few months, it’s almost like he finishes growing up. One day she notices that his stubble is coming in thicker-- a full beard, like his brother, not just little patches. His shoulders fill out a little too. He still speaks softly to her, but she notices when they go to a store or a restaurant or when Bobby calls to check in, Sam uses his full voice-- lets it be deep and rounded and adult. He even starts holding himself differently. Stops trying to compact his tall frame by hunching his shoulders and stuffing his hands into his pockets-- he lets himself look strong and sturdy. It suits him. In fact, he’s never looked better.

By the time Dean has been dead for four months, Sam is down to only crying once a week or so, and Jess thinks he even might be ready to start hunting again soon. Might even be ready to make the drive to Indiana to break the news to Ben.

They wake up that morning and pack a picnic lunch before heading off for a hike. It’s two and a half miles to the peak where they stop to eat. The weather is so perfect, they end up staying for a couple hours, reading the novels they’d brought along, enjoying the fresh air and the sunshine. By the time they pack up and begin walking the two and a half miles home, Jess notices her skin sting a little bit with a sunburn. She hasn’t had one of those in a long time.

“We should see if we can rent a boat or something,” Jess comments as they make their way home. “Go out on the water. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“Yeah. Or kayaks. I’ve never been kayaking.”

“I used to go all the time when I was a kid. There’s a place to rent stuff like that a few miles up the lake, I think, at this one resort.”

Sam nods a little. “That sounds great, Jess.”

The two of them come through the trees just then, and she fumbles for the keys to the lakehouse. But Sam reaches for her hand, stopping her.

“What?”

“There’s a third car parked in front of the house,” he says cautiously, glancing around. 

She frowns. The nearest neighbors are way too far away to justify someone parking here to visit them.

“Maybe they’re in the wrong place,” she suggests.

“Or maybe someone is coming after us.”

“Sam…”

He shakes his head. “Stick close. Keep quiet.”

She does as he says, and they make their way to the door carefully. There isn’t anyone sitting in the third car, which is parked next to the Impala-- an old, rusted job that used to be white but has since been covered in dirt and dust, with a half-flat tire and a cracked windshield. 

Jess reaches to unlock the door, but it’s already unlocked. She glances downward-- the corner of the doormat is flopped over. 

“They must’ve found the key,” she says quietly to Sam.

“Stay behind me, okay? I left a gun in the mudroom, so I’ll grab it.”

“Holy water?”

“Yeah, there’s some in a flask by my gun.”

She nods, and they retrieve these things as quietly as they can before stepping into the house proper.

They hear the refrigerator fall shut as they pad through the living room. Jess frowns. 

(so someone broke in to raid the damn fridge?)

But when they turn the corner, it isn’t someone. It’s Dean Winchester, looking vibrant and more alive than ever, drinking straight out of the Brita pitcher like he hasn’t had water in months.

Jess and Sam both stand there, dumbfounded, staring.

(it’s not him. it’s a skinwalker or a… what did bobby call them? revenents? something like that. or maybe he’s a ghost.)

She hears the hammer of Sam’s gun. She reaches for it, pushing it downward on instinct. Because whoever’s standing in her kitchen, they look exactly like Dean Winchester.

He hears the commotion, and turns to face them, grinning widely, wiping the spilled water off his dirty face. “Heya, Sammy,” he says, his voice sounding gruff and ragged. "Hey, Jess."

“Whatever you are, you aren’t my brother,” Sam says menacingly. He raises his gun again. 

“Whoa, hey, it’s me,” Dean says, holding his palms to the air. “Hey, flask of holy water, right, Jess? Come on, give me the pope’s shower, I’ll prove I’m clean.”

Cautiously, she takes a few steps toward him.

“I ain’t gonna bite ya.”

“Just don’t move,” she says. She uncaps the flask and splashes him in the face.

He doesn’t burn or flinch. “See? Same old me, but good as new.”

She’s still cautious. She glances over her shoulder to Sam, who still has his gun pointed.

“Okay, okay, if I was some kinda monster, would I do this?” He takes his silver pocket knife out and slices the back of his arm.

(that’s indisputable, jess realizes, watching him get a wad of paper towel to press against the completely normal, human cut.)

Relieved, a smile widening at her lips, she sets the flask down and hugs him hard. “Oh my god.”

Sam bounds over, and she lets go of Dean so Sam can hug him, mashing his cheek against Dean’s ear like a little kid. He pulls away, giving his brother a once-over.

“How the fuck did you…” Sam trails off.

“I figured it was something you did,” Dean says with a shrug. 

“No,” Sam says. “We didn’t do anything. I’ve been looking for an option to bring you back, but there wasn’t anything that sounded above board. I can’t believe this.” He chuckles a little bit.

“Yeah, you look amazing,” Jess notes. Dean’s green eyes seem to sparkle more than ever, surrounded by thick lashes. His bronze stubble dots his jaw perfectly, with more freckles showing through on his nose and cheekbones than she remembers. His perfectly-tanned skin is almost glowing, even under a layer of dirt and grime. The only part of him that seems worse off is his voice.

(why does dean look so perfect and lively after coming back from the dead, she wonders silently, when sam looked like a ghost for weeks?)

“Hey, why are you so dirty?” Sam asks right as Jess notices it.

“Sort of woke up in a coffin somewhere in Oregon,” Dean says with a shrug. “I had to dig myself out and steal a car to drive down here. Why’d you bury me in Oregon, of all places? Why not in Kansas with Mom? Come to think of it, why the hell did you bury me in the first place, instead of burning my body?”

“I don’t know,” Sam says. “I wasn’t thinking. I don’t know. I’m so glad you’re back, man.”

“If you didn’t bring me back, though, what did?” Dean asks.

“That’s a really good question,” Jess says, shaking her head a little bit.

“We should drive up to Bobby’s to see if he can help us figure it out,” Sam suggests.

“Yeah. In the morning. For now, I need to shower and eat. I’m starving.”

“I’ll drive into town for burgers, fries, and beers,” Sam says, grinning. Jess has never heard him suggest getting burgers in her life. 

“Now you’re talkin’. Oh, hey, one more thing,” Dean says. He reaches for his left sleeve, shoving it up to reveal his bicep-- and the big red scar on it. A man’s handprint. “Seems like whatever took me outta the pit marked their territory.”

+

The next morning, Dean is up before Sam and Jess-- which is almost a first.

“Morning,” she says, surprised, as she wanders into the kitchen to find him making breakfast.

“Morning,” he returns, waving with the spatula. He turns back to the scrambled eggs. “Hope you’re hungry. Coffee’s in the pot.”

“Thanks.” She moves her still-damp hair behind her back and reaches for a mug.

“Fill me in, blondie. What’s been going on while I was away?”

She blinks. 

(sam being miserable, losing touch with ellen, jo, and ash, bobby calling to check in all the time, a few hikes, avoidance of the topic of hunting)

“Not much,” she summarizes with a shrug, taking a sip of coffee. “We’ve basically been holed up here.”

“How’d Sammy handle it?”

“About how you’d expect, I guess.”

“Huh.” Dean grabs a pair of tongs to take the bacon out of the pan and lay it on some paper towels to drain. “Is he coming down soon? I made a ton of food.”

“Yeah. He’s finishing up in the shower.”

She watches him for a moment. Watches him take the scrambled eggs off the heat, wandering past her to take the frying pan and the paper towel full of bacon to the dining table before coming back and taking toast out of the oven. She’d never seen anyone make toast in the oven before him, but all things considered, it’s far from his weirdest trait.

“Hey, Dean?” She asks as he closes the oven, the cookie sheet of toast in one oven mitt covered hand.

“Yeah.”

“What was it like in hell?”

He pauses, his back still to her. His shoulders shift a little. Then, he turns to bring the toast to the table, too.

“I don’t really remember it,” he dismisses. “It’s fuzzy. I was in that house with you guys, and then I was clawing my way up out of a shallow grave, and then I was breaking into an off duty convenience store and the windows were shattering.”

Jess frowns. “The windows were shattering?”

“Yeah, it was weird,” Dean goes on, grabbing some plates and forks. “The TV came on, but it was static, and then the radio was screeching, and then the windows shattered. I don’t know. Might have something to do with whatever took me outta the pit and left me with this.” With a fistful of forks, he gestures to his left shoulder, where the handprint is. “Then I stole a car and drove down here.”

“Huh.”

She hears Sam’s footsteps on the stairs, and the three of them eat breakfast and drink coffee. Jess does the dishes after, and once they’re all packed, the three of them pile into the Impala to make the drive to Sioux Falls.

She watches Nevada zip past the back window, trying to sort through everything, trying to rationalize how Dean came back from the dead. 

(something brought him back. so what was it? a demon? maybe we should ask ruby. see what she thinks. she’s the only person we know who’s been up close and personal with hell.)

(and the boys may hate her, but she saved me and sam back in oregon. so maybe jo’s right. maybe she really isn’t so bad. she’s done nothing but help us.)

“Hey, by the way,” Dean pipes up after a stretch of quiet. “Did you two, uh… did you tell my kid I died?”

“No,” Sam admits, almost sheepishly-- “we… hadn’t gotten around to it yet.”

“We figured we should do it in person,” Jess adds. “And we didn’t feel up to driving to Indiana yet.”

Dean nods a few times from the driver’s seat. “Good. Great. I saw a missed call from Lisa on my phone, and I wasn’t sure if I should… anyway. He doesn’t need to know what happened. It’ll just scare him and confuse him.”

(don’t you want to haul ass to indiana and see him? jess wants to ask. you thought last time was goodbye. aren’t you eager to give him a hug and see how he’s doing?)

“Dean, I’ve been thinking,” Sam says. “Maybe me and Jess should go in first. Warn Bobby that you’re back and we already went through the holy water and silver knife tests.”

“That ain’t a bad idea, little brother,” Dean agrees. “Wouldn’t want the man to accidentally kill me. Again. Ha.”

+

Bobby is suspicious, but after a few minutes of explanation from Sam and Jess, he goes outside alone to meet Dean.

“I can hardly believe you ain’t a shifter or a revenant, boy,” Bobby says with a grin as he invites Dean inside the house. “I never would’ve thought it possible to come back from the dead for real.”

“Yeah, we’re all waiting for the Pet Semetary creep factor to kick in,” Dean says. “In the meantime, though, we gotta figure out what brought me back.”

(he’s wearing his amulet again, jess notices. sam must’ve given it back. that’s good. things are going back to normal.)

“I’m with you on that one,” Bobby agrees. “Let’s hit the books.”

+

‘The books’ don’t yield much in the way of an explanation, so Bobby’s next idea is to call a psychic friend of his. She agrees to meet with them the next day to hold a seance, so the four of them call it quits for the night and order a pizza.

The next morning, Sam wanders back into his and Jess’ cramped, book-filled guest room, freshly showered, clad in a shirt she’s never seen before-- splotchy navy blue and powder blue stripes, white square buttons, western style pockets. She wrinkles her nose, standing, closing the space between them.

“You _just_ became hot, Sam, and now you’re wearing the ugliest shirt I’ve ever seen?” She asks, setting her hands on his chest.

He opens his mouth, huffing a little in protest, shaking his head at her. “What’s wrong with this shirt? I like it.”

“Where did you even get it?”

“Old Navy.”

“Old Navy? Okay, I’m calling them to complain.”

He laughs a little. “Unbelievable. And what do you mean, I _just_ got hot? Did you not think I was hot until recently?”

Her eyes widen a little. She lets go of him, glancing away. (did i say that out loud? shit.)

“You were _so_ cute, Sam,” she finally settles for saying. 

“Oh my god.”

“Cutest guy I’d ever seen. Anyway, I think you’re hot now, isn’t that what matters?”

“Unbelievable,” he huffs, grabbing her again, snaking his hands around her waist to kiss her. “I can’t even look at you right now. All this time, my girlfriend didn’t even think I was hot? Have I been living a lie, Jess?”

“No!” She laughs.

“We’ve been together for what, almost seven years now? And you just barely started thinking I’m hot? Were you even attracted to me?” He demands in good nature.

“Of course I was attracted to you. You’re the only guy who’s ever hit on me who was actually taller than me.”

“I’m so offended, Jessica. You were only after me because I’m tall? For the record, I thought you were hot since day one.”

“I look exactly the same as I did when I was nineteen,” she protests. “You’ve changed. You have better hair now.”

“Yeah! Because you cut it! So you’re saying I can only be good looking if it’s because of something you did to me?”

“It’s not just the haircut,” she insists. “It’s the… I don’t know. You got hot. I like the stubble.”

“You know I was self conscious about that,” he protests, touching a hand to his jaw. “Were you just biding your time all these years, waiting for me to hit my mid twenties so I could grow a full beard?”

“Listen, the point is, you’re hot now. But you’re about to ruin it with that ridiculous shirt!”

“I like this shirt,” he huffs. “I even bought it in orange, too.”

“Shut up, Sam, oh my god,” she laughs.

“Make me,” he suggests, pulling her close again.

+

The four of them leave for the psychic’s house after breakfast, and Bobby introduces her as Pamela Barnes. She’s a good looking woman in her mid forties with curly black hair and a mischievous grin. 

When she shows them into her house, it looks exactly how Jess would have expected a psychic’s house to look-- jewel tones, candles, dried herbs in jars, the works.

“I ouija’d my way through a dozen spirits,” she explains when Bobby asks if she’s heard anything about Dean’s rise from the grave. “No one seems to know who broke your boy out, or why. Think we have to go for a seance.”

“You’re not gonna summon the damn thing here,” Bobby says in disbelief.

“No. Of course not. I just want to get a peak at it,” she explains. “Let’s get set up.”

Once the table is set with a black table cloth and six pillar candles, she instructs everyone to sit around in a circle and hold hands, with Dean on her right.

“I need to touch something our mystery monster touched,” she says, slipping her hand under the table. 

Dean jumps a little, cheeks going rosy, a sloppy grin at his lips. “The thing definitely didn’t touch me there.”

“My mistake.”

Dean chuckles a little, a weird airy laugh reminiscent of a thirteen year old girl. 

(what a loser, jess thinks fondly)

“It, uh… it left a hand print,” Dean explains, pushing his tee shirt sleeve up to reveal the scar. “Will this work?”

Pamela nods. “Perfect. Everyone close your eyes. Don’t let go of anyone’s hand.”

Sam’s hand in her right, Dean’s hand on her left, Jess squeezes her eyes shut tight.

“I invoke, conjure, and command you, appear unto me before this circle,” Pamela chants a few times.

By the sound of it, the TV in the room flicks on, and Jess’ ears fill with static. She squirms a little, antsy, but keeps her eyes shut.

“I invoke, conjure, and command you, appear unto me before this circle,” Pamela says again. “Castiel? No, sorry, Castiel, I don’t scare that easy.”

“Castiel?” Dean’s gruff voice mutters.

“Its name. It’s whispering at me to turn back.”

The static gets louder, and Jess flinches hard as something glass shatters. Sam squeezes her hand. 

“I conjure and command you,” Pamela says loudly, “show me your face!”

“Maybe we oughta stop,” Bobby suggests uneasily.

“I almost got it. I conjure and command you! Show me your face, Castiel!”

A fever pitch thunders through the room, and something else shatters. Jess can feel her heart slamming in her forehead, but she keeps her eyes screwed shut.

And then, one of the most terrible sounds Jess has ever heard, Pamela screams. Heat fills the room.

Jess opens her eyes just in time to see Pamela fall out of her chair, a blur of dark smoke half-concealing her. 

“I can’t see! Oh my god!” Pamela sobs.

Jess glances between the Wincester brothers nervously before turning her eyes toward the psychic. Bobby scrambles to the floor, picking up her shoulders. Her eyes have been burnt out. Jess can smell it.

(she wonders for a moment if she’s going to be sick.)

“Call 911,” Bobby instructs between the sounds of Pamela’s whimpers.

“Yeah,” Sam says, fumbling with his cell phone.

+

“She’s blind because of me,” Dean says later as the three of them are waiting for Bobby to get off the phone with the hospital. “Maybe even dead.”

“Don’t say that, man,” Sam dismisses. “This Castiel thing is what blinded her.”

“What do we do now?” Jess asks, frowning, ripping at the label on her beer.

“Summon Castiel, or whatever,” Dean says with a shrug.

“Do you have a death wish?” 

Jess glances toward Sam. “We have to figure out what it is, right?”

“Not if it’s gonna kill us all,” Sam says.

“Maybe we should call Ruby and see if she knows what it is,” Jess suggests.

“Hell no, we ain’t playing drinking games with demons ever again,” Dean protests immediately.

“Yeah, Ruby’s bad news, babe.”

“She saved our lives back in Oregon,” Jess points out. “She got rid of Lilith for us.”

“Yeah, that was a stroke of good luck,” Dean huffs. “Could’ve been a whole mess of stupid.”

“Yeah, I’m not so sure calling her over that night was such a good idea, Jess,” Sam adds, shaking his head.

(fine. then i’ll do it on my own.)

Bobby comes into the room a moment later, sitting down on the couch next to Dean. “Pam’s stable. She’s gonna be okay.”

“That’s good news,” Sam says.

“What next?” Bobby asks.

“Summon Castiel,” Jess repeats.

“Yeah, we’ll find some abandoned warehouse, ward it to hell, and call him in. Now that we know the thing’s name, we should be able to work our way through summoning rituals until something sticks,” Dean adds.

Sam sighs. “Alright.”

“I’ll be right back,” Jess says, standing, quickly checking her pocket for her phone. She heads to the upstairs bathroom and shuts the door, turning the sink on just in case, and she makes the call. But Ruby doesn’t answer, so she tries Jo.

“Hello,” Jo answers.

“Hi! Jo. It’s Jess,” she says.

“Long time, no hear.”

“I know. I’m sorry. We’ve been… well, you know. Ha. Um, Dean’s back from the dead.”

“He’s what?” Jo demands. “How?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Is Ruby with you?”

“Yeah. She’s driving. I’ll put you on speaker.”

“Thanks.

“Hi,” Ruby says a little stiffly once the phone is on speaker.

“Hi. Do you know of anything that could pull someone out of hell? Could a demon do that?”

“No,” Ruby says. “No demon has that kind of power. The sky bleeds, the ground quakes. It's cosmic. No demon can swing that. Not Lilith, not anybody.”

“Then what can?” Jess asks, ignoring the chill that slips down her spine.

“Nothing I know of.”

She sighs, closing her eyes for a second. “Okay. Thanks, Ruby. I’ll talk to you guys later.”

“Bye,” Jo says, hanging up.

Jess fumbles to turn the sink off.

(so it’s not something from hell. then what is it?)

+

They find an abandoned barn easily enough, and the four of them spend an hour painting every kind of protecting or summoning symbol they can find. 

“I still think this is a bad idea,” Bobby comments as they finish painting.

“That makes two of us,” Sam says.

“We have to figure out what this Castiel thing is, Sam,” Dean says with a shrug. 

Sam sighs. But he doesn’t protest further.

Bobby does the rituals. Jess watches nervously, hand tight around the handle of her navy blue Colt, but nothing happens. 

“Are you sure you did that right?” Dean asks after a beat of quiet.

Bobby makes a face at him.

“Just asking.”

As if on cue, the barn roof starts to rattle. Jess jumps a little, glancing around-- but there’s nothing.

“Could be the wind,” Sam pipes up.

The barn door bursts open.

Before Jess can see who (or what) is coming in, the world goes dark.

+

It’s like she blinks, and then she’s awake, crumbled on the floor of the barn next to Sam. He’s waking up too, and so is Bobby across the room.

Dean stands in the middle of the barn, his green eyes wide, his lips parted in an expression Jess has never seen on him before. 

(wonderment?)

“Dean? Are you okay?” Sam asks as he scrambles to his feet. Jess and Bobby stand up too, all brushing themselves off, glancing around the now-empty barn.

“He’s… he’s an angel,” Dean says breathlessly. He blinks. “Are you guys alright?”

“Yeah, we’re fine,” Jess says, taking a few steps toward the older Winchester-- “An angel?”

“Yeah. He said he… gripped me tight and raised me from perdition because God commanded it.”

Sam blinks a few times.

“God?” Bobby repeats in disbelief. 

“That’s what he said,” Dean confirms. 

(he looks starstruck. this… angel… must have been beautiful.)

Jess tries to imagine what she thinks angels look like, but she comes up blank.

“I thought you didn’t believe in angels,” Sam says.

Dean exhales a little, shaking his head. “I guess I was wrong.”

+

“I would’ve thought he was some kind of demon, except he walked right over that devil’s trap,” Dean explains the next day as the four of them sit around Bobby’s kitchen table. 

“Why would Castiel lie to you?” Sam asks. “He ‘gripped you out of hell’ or whatever for a reason, right?”

“Yeah. He said they have work for me,” Dean answers, pulling a face. “Dunno if I wanna be put on their shortlist, though. Anyway, if angels are real, don’t you think some hunter somewhere would have seen one... at some point... ever?”

“Yeah,” Jess says, “you’re the hunter.”

Dean sighs, taking a swig of his beer.

“I got stacks of lore,” Bobby points out. “Biblical, pre-Biblical. Some of it's in damn cuneiform. It all says an angel can snatch a soul from the pit.”

“What else could do it?”

“Airlift your ass out of the hot box? As far as I can tell, nothing.” Bobby shrugs.

“What did he look like, Dean?” Jess asks. “I didn’t see him before he knocked us all out.”

“He looked…” Dean gestures vaguely, trailing off. “Like a dude.”

Sam blinks. “Just like a regular guy?”

“He was in a vessel,” Dean explains. “Devout man who prayed for it, or something. Like demons, but they need permission. That’s why Pam’s eyes got burned out-- he didn’t have a vessel yet, and she tried to look at his true form, and she couldn’t handle it. Apparently no human can. He seemed to think I’d remember him.”

“But you don’t remember anything from hell, right?” Sam asks.

Dean blinks, glancing down toward his beer before answering. “Yeah.”

“Bobby, what else do you know about angels?” Jess asks.

He leaves the room and comes back with a pile of books, which he deposits on the coffee table. “Get reading.”

+

That night, Jess lays awake in the dark, staring at the ceiling, trying to parse through everything happening with angels. Trying to figure out why this happened. What it means. 

Sam sleeps easily next to her, but he’s never had a hard time falling asleep. She always seems to. 

She takes a deep breath. Her head is swirling. She can’t relax.

(all this time, angels and god and heaven and hell was all real. what the fuck?)

(no, seriously. what the fuck?)

(and they pulled dean out of hell to, what, use him? how do we know angels are even good?)

Based on the lore she’d read in Bobby’s books, angels are more warriors of God than guardians or helpers. They can be vicious. 

(and he knocked us all out to talk to dean alone. why did he need to talk to dean alone? didn’t he realize that dean was just going to tell us what they talked about anyway?)

She turns over in bed. 

A moment later, she resigns herself to the fact that she’s not going to fall asleep. So she grabs a crewneck sweatshirt of Sam’s, way too big for her, and pulls it on. Figures she’ll head downstairs and look through some more lore, since it’s swarming her mind anyway.

But when she gets to the bottom of the stairs, she hears voices from the kitchen. She stops. Listens closer.

“I’m not here to perch on your shoulder,” a grave voice comes-- a man’s, maybe around Dean’s age. “We have larger concerns.”

“By the way, where the hell is your boss, huh?” Dean demands. “God?”

“The lord works--”

“If you say in mysterious ways, so help me, I will kick your ass.”

Jess almost laughs. (seriously, dean? threatening an angel with an ass kicking?)

“You better give me some straight answers, and I mean now,” Dean goes on.

“The first of the 66 seals of the apocalypse has already been broken, Dean. That’s why we need you. Lilith is breaking the seals.”

(the apocalypse? jess wants to yell. but she keeps quiet. continues listening.)

“What, like… locks on a door?”

“Correct. When the last one opens, Lucifer walks free.”

“Lucifer?” Dean demands. “But I thought Lucifer was just a story they told at demon Sunday school. There's no such thing.”

“Just the other day, you thought there was no such thing as me. Why do you think we're here walking among you now for the first time in 2,000 years?”

“To stop Lucifer, I guess,” Dean says. She can practically hear him shaking his head in disbelief. 

(lucifer, jess’ mind repeats. what the fuck?)

“That’s right.”

“Well, stellar work stopping the first seal from breaking,” Dean huffs. “What do you need some guy from Kansas for? You’re an angel. God’s warrior, and all, like you said. What do you need me for?”

“That will become apparent,” Castiel answers gravely. 

“Oh, great. Love the secrecy. Can I get it out of you with a game of truth or dare? I’ll pour you a shot of whiskey.”

“I don’t… drink, Dean,” Castiel says, confused. “As for the first seal, we tried. But we couldn’t get there in time. And the second seal… our numbers are not unlimited. Six of my brothers died in the field this week. You think the armies of Heaven should do your bidding? There's a bigger picture here. You should show me some respect. I dragged you out of Hell. I can throw you back in.”

“Castiel--”

There’s a sound of fluttering wings, and then Dean groans.

“Son of a bitch.”

(did he disappear or something?)

She hears Dean stomping toward her, so she thinks fast and acts like she’s just barely coming down the stairs. He glances up at her, startled.

“Jess, you okay?”

“Yeah, just couldn’t sleep,” she says. “I thought I heard voices. Is someone here?”

“That angel son of a bitch,” Dean huffs. “He came here to talk to me but then he just up and vanished in the middle of our conversation. So fucking rude. It’s like the face to face equivalent of someone hanging up on you.”

“Yikes,” Jess says, since she doesn’t know what else to say.

“Yeah, fuckin yikes,” Dean huffs. “Look, I could use a drink. You wanna join me?”

(midnight whiskey? that doesn’t sound like me.)

But she nods. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

+

They have a couple drinks, and Dean makes Jess watch this over-dramatic medical show on low volume. Thanks to the alcohol and the comfortable background noise, she falls asleep on the couch without meaning to around three in the morning.

And Dean must’ve fallen asleep, too, because she’s woken up a few hours later by him springing out of the armchair he’d been sitting in, fumbling for his gun, swearing under his breath.

(he looks frantic.)

“You okay?” she asks blearily, blinking at him.

He glances around the room a little before collapsing back onto the chair. “Yeah. I’m fine. Just had a… weird dream. It’s fine.”

“Okay,” she says, rubbing her face. “I’m gonna go upstairs.”

Without saying anything, Dean follows her, and shuts himself into his guest room.

+

The next day, Sam suggests they head to the roadhouse to mention the whole apocalypse and angels thing. They make the four hour drive and arrive by noon.

“Dean Winchester,” Ellen says in half-disbelief as the three of them wander into the roadhouse. “Good to see you up and moving. You gonna tell me how you swung that?”

“I’ll tell you all about it, but don’t blame me if it sounds insane,” Dean says, accepting her hug. “How’re you guys holding up?”

“Fine,” Ellen says. “Same old. Jo’s been running around hunting with that Ruby girl but she comes back here at least a couple days a month to check in.”

“You say Dean Winchester?” Ash’s voice comes from an open door. He wanders out, wearing his usual ridiculous uniform of jeans and a plaid shirt with the sleeves ripped off, his mullet looking longer than ever. “Thought you were hellhound kibble.”

“Yeah, well, turns out you can’t get rid of me that easy,” Dean drawls. 

“That’s why we wanted to come talk to you guys,” Sam says.

“Yeah, do you know anything about angels?”

Ellen laughs, and one of the hunters nearby, who was nursing a noon beer, turns his head. 

“Angels,” he repeats.

“Yeah,” Jess confirms. “Know anything?”

“My mother said they come guide you to heaven when you bite the dust,” the man chuckles. “They ain’t real.”

Sam ignores him, turning back to Ellen. “So you’ve never heard of them being real?”

“No, not once. Before he passed, Bill was a religious kinda guy, but even he wouldn’t have said there were angels walking around. Why do you ask, hon?”

Dean takes his left arm out of his denim button down and pushes up his tee shirt sleeve to show Castiel’s handprint. “That’s how I got outta hell. An angel pulled me. Said they got work for me.”

“Whoa,” Ash says, reaching over to touch the handprint. “That’s a gnarly scar. Never seen anything like it.”

“That makes all of us,” Dean says gruffly, putting his sleeves back to normal. 

“Why would they have work for you?” Ellen asks.

“Said something about the 66 seals of the apocalypse.”

“What? End of days?”

Dean nods. “That’s right. Guess I’m in charge of stopping it. Only Castiel didn’t really tell me how to swing that.”

“This gets weirder by the second,” Ellen says, frowning.

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Jess agrees.

“Did he say anything about what the 66 seals would look like?” Ash asks.

“Well, I assume it ain’t a Seaworld show. But other than that, no, not really. Just that they’re battles of some kind.”

“Huh. If they have a pattern, I can track ‘em,” he says. “You let me know if somethin’ like that will come in handy.”

“Will do,” Dean says with a nod.

“And if you wanna come on back sometime while you’re around…”

(well that’s forward, jess thinks, half amused, glancing toward sam-- but he’s oblivious.)

“Ash, buddy, I think that ship’s sailed,” Dean says, clapping him on the shoulder. “But thanks anyway.”

“Suit yourself. I’m around if you change your mind.” He saunters back to his room.

(okay, sam. you’re an idiot.)

“Can I get you guys some lunch while you’re here?” Ellen asks.

“I’d kill for one of your world-famous cheeseburgers,” Dean says.

“Of course. You two want anything?”

“Sure, I could go for a burger,” Jess says with a nod. “Thanks, Ellen.”

“Do you have any salads?”

Dean turns to face his brother, looking annoyed and grossed out and betrayed all at once. “Salad, Sammy? Really? Are you on a diet?”

“I like salad,” Sam protests. Jess laughs a little bit.

“Garden or caesar?” Ellen asks with a chuckle.

“Garden would be great. Thanks.”

“You got it.”

+

After they eat, they tell Ash everything they know about the seals and the apocalypse and angels so he can keep an eye on the situation and try to track the seals once they figure out what that even means. That done, the three of them get back into the Impala and head toward a possible haunting case Ellen had mentioned in Tennessee. 

None of them have hunted since Dean went to hell, so even just the thought of it is kind of weird to Jess. But on the other hand, she has kind of been itching to get back in the game.

“Alright, Sammy, what did Ellen give you?” Dean asks as he drives east toward the Nebraska state border.

“Sounds like a classic case of a spirit gone vengeful,” Sam answers, looking down at the printout. “It’s just a printout from an internet chat board for people having household problems. This guy is saying his TV keeps turning on, and the volume keeps getting cranked all the way up, and he thinks there’s a problem with his air conditioner blowing too hard because things keep falling off tables. Apparently a lamp fell onto his foot and broke his toe.”

“So the ghost is trying to hurt him, but it isn’t strong enough,” Jess suggests from the back seat.

“Sounds like,” Sam sighs.

“Good ol’ haunting. That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” Dean says cheerfully, drumming a hand against the steering wheel. “Woo! Back in the game!”

+

They interview the guy who’d posted on the message board, Jess and Dean pretending to be from the power company, Sam from the air conditioner company. They only really get one more detail out of their interviews, though: the house has been really drafty and cold, even when he turns the air conditioner off.

“Guess we gotta figure out if it’s the house that’s haunted, or if it’s the guy,” Dean comments as they compare notes that first night in Tennessee. 

“He seems fairly unattached,” Jess comments, reaching for her water bottle. “Which could mean that it’s not personal, or it could mean he became that way after the ghost’s death.”

“Oh, great, yeah, that’s really helpful,” Dean says sarcastically.

“Don’t be a dick, dude,” Sam huffs.

Jess ignores it. “My money’s on something traumatic happening. Loss of a loved one. Maybe he hit someone with his car and killed them. And it kinda turned him into a recluse.”

Sam nods. “Let’s start by looking for an accident, then. Not like we have any other leads.”

Jess stands up and goes to grab her laptop, but then she almost drops it. Because a man appears out of absolutely nowhere.

She blinks at him. He’s about her height, with messy black hair, a tan trench coat, and a blue tie. He looks angry.

“Cas, what the hell?” Dean says, standing, taking a step toward the man. Sam stands too, copying his brother as if on instinct.

(cas? as in… castiel? the angel? are we nicknaming angels now?)

“Hello, Dean,” he says gravely. His narrowed eyes fall on Sam, who looks shocked, and then Jess. “Samuel. Jessica.”

“It’s Sam,” Sam manages. “Um… you’re… an angel?”

“This is just a vessel,” Castiel says impatiently. Then he turns back to face the older Winchester. “I thought I made it clear how important it is to stop Lilith.”

“Yeah, crystal clear, bedhead,” Dean answers. “But we don’t know how.”

“So you figure out how,” Castiel says intensely.

(this is the ethereal being dean was so starstruck by? jess can’t help but think as she looks at the incredibly average looking man in his thirties. he looks like an accountant who forgot to brush his hair or shave this morning. other than the weird way he holds his eyes open, he looks completely normal.)

(wait how did he know our names?)

“We’re working on it,” Dean defends. “I got the smartest guy I know crunching the numbers.”

“I am aware of the hedge-born churl and his efforts,” the angel deadpans. “What I am unaware of is why you are wasting your time with an everyday haunting.”

“We aren’t wasting our time,” Jess pipes up. “Someone could get hurt if we don’t find the spirit and stop them. Someone could even die.”

“Yeah,” Sam agrees firmly. “Apocalypse or not, saving people is what we do.”

(hot, jess can’t help but think, glancing toward her boyfriend with his good haircut and stubble and straight shoulders-- hot.)

Castiel’s eyes narrow even more, and he shakes his head grumpily. Then, before anyone can say anything else, he’s gone.

“Motherfucker,” Dean huffs. “I hate that. Just say goodbye and walk out the door. No reason to be an asshole!” He calls, as if Castiel will be able to hear him.

“That guy’s an angel?” Sam asks, eyebrows raised. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, I know, he’s kind of a dick.”

Jess laughs weakly, setting her laptop down on the table and opening it. “He looks different than I expected.”

“What do you mean?” Dean asks. She glances over to him, and she could swear his green eyes glitter even without a real source of light on them.

(seriously, why does he look so great after being dead? jess finds herself wondering again. why doesn’t he look creepy like sam did?)

“He just looks like a regular office guy,” she answers with a shrug, turning back to her computer.

And then Castiel is back, planting himself between Dean and the other two. “I took care of it,” he says impatiently.

Dean blinks, startled. “You gotta work on your manners. Try knocking on a damn door sometime.”

“I took care of the haunting. So now you can focus on the job heaven has given you,” Castiel insists, ignoring Dean’s jab.

“You… what?” Sam asks.

“I identified the spirit and disposed of her bones. Her soul has been returned to heaven, where it belongs,” Castiel explains. “I don’t have time for this. Don’t make me come back here for such a stupid reason again.”

He’s gone.

“That guy is such a dick,” Dean groans, flopping down on the bed. “He swiped our case! Asshole!”

“He can just… solve a case in thirty seconds?” Sam asks in disbelief. “I… wow.”

Jess closes her computer. “I guess we’re done here, then.”

“He won’t even tell me what the first seal was.” Dean sighs, rubbing at his face. “Just that he tried to stop it, but he couldn’t get there in time.”

“He can solve a haunting in thirty seconds,” Sam says again. “What does he mean, he couldn’t get there in time?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be sitting here with my dick in my hand,” Dean snaps.

“That’s disgusting, Dean.”

“Are you telling me you don’t--”

“Okay, okay,” Jess says, putting her hand in the air to shut the boys up. “We can talk about dicks later. Or, actually, let’s not. But for now… I think we have to hit the books. See what kind of lore we can find on the 66 seals that open Lucifer’s cage.”

(god. did i really just say that? lucifer?)

“Fine,” Dean huffs. “Where do we start?”

“I doubt we’re going to find that kind of book in a normal library. Let’s go see that theology professor we talked to a few months back. See if she knows anything.”

+

They leave the University of Chicago empty-handed, metaphorically and physically. The professor hadn’t known anything about the 66 seals.. It seems like there’s nothing written of the 66 seals anywhere-- no lore, no Christian texts, no Jewish texts, no Muslim texts, no Abrahamic religious texts of any kind. 

“This is fuckin’ great,” Dean huffs as they head back to the Impala. “Waste of a trip to Chicago.”

“We’re only a couple hours from Indiana, though,” Jess points out. “You could go visit Ben.”

Dean shifts his shoulders, taking a second before responding. “We, uh… we gotta stay on the trail. Anyway, Lisa and the kid are probably busy.”

Jess frowns a little. (you could call and ask.)

“Let’s just head back to California and see if there’s anything useful in your nerd cave,” Dean suggests, abruptly changing the subject. 

“Maybe we could use that tracking spell Bobby did before, and find Lilith again,” Sam suggests.

“You think she’s topside? I bet her Manson girls are doing her dirty work, and she’s sitting pretty in the pit.”

“Castiel kind of made it sound like she’s breaking the seals herself,” Jess points out. “I wish we had a good way to get in contact with him. Ask him a couple questions.”

“I don’t.” Dean fishes his car keys out of his jacket pocket (he stopped wearing john’s leather jacket at some point, jess notices randomly) and unlocks the Impala. 

“Why not?” Sam asks.

“That dude makes me feel weird. Like, he makes me nervous, or something. I don’t know.”

“He makes you nervous?” Sam laughs a little bit. “Dean, I’ve seen you go toe to toe with demons and vampires and every monster known to man. Without flinching. And an _angel_ makes you nervous?”

“I said I don’t know,” Dean says defensively. “Get in the damn car. Let’s get moving.”

+

Before the three of them can make it back to California, though, they stumble upon a few weird news articles in Colorado: three men in the town have all died suddenly, apparently of fright.

Jess looks into the guy’s backstory while the boys hit up the coroner. She ends up paying his neighbor a visit, a guy named Mark with an alarming collection of reptiles.

“You say you’re Frank’s niece?” He asks, his nose wrinkled up a little as he leads her to his living room.

“Yeah. I haven’t seen Uncle Frank in years,” she sighs. “He had a falling out with my dad. You know how brothers can be.”

“Oh, yeah,” Mark says wisely. “Well, what do you want to know?”

“How was he acting?” She asks. “Near the end.”

“Dude was acting insane.” Mark shrugs. “He was freaking out. Poor bastard was totally paranoid.”

She frowns a little. “Paranoid? What about?”

“Witches.”

“Witches?” She repeats.

“Yeah. The Wizard of Oz was on TV and he was like, the green bitch is totally out to get me.”

“Right. Anything else, other than, um, witches?”

“Al-Qaeda, ferrets, artificial sweetener. Those pez dispensers with their dead little eyes. Lots of stuff.”

(artificial sweetener? she would have laughed if it wasn’t about a dead guy.)

“How long have you known my uncle?” 

“Since high school.”

“Oh yeah?” She smiles a little, feigning nostalgia. “What was he like back then?”

“Uh…” Mark glances toward the door. “You know, I don’t wanna hammer him… he’s dead, and all, and you’re his niece.”

“You don’t have to spare my feelings. I know what Uncle Frank could be like,” she says, thinking fast. “He was always kind of…” she gestures vaguely, like she’s trying to think of the word.

“A dick,” Mark suggests.

“To put it straight.”

“Yeah, he was a bully back in the day. And I mean… you probably know about what happened to his wife.”

“Oh, yeah,” she says solemnly.

“Kinda weird your dad named you Jessica when his brother’s wife was named Jessica,” Mark comments with another shrug. “Hope she’s resting in peace, or whatever.”

(okay, dead wife named jessica, she notes. something to look into.)

“Yeah, that was… that really took a toll on the family,” she improvises. “Really took a toll on Uncle Frank.”

“Yeah.”

She stands, offering him a friendly smile. “Thanks for taking the time to talk to me.”

“No problem,” the guy says. “How long you in town?”

Jess blinks. “I’m not sure yet.”

“Well, if you wanna come back sometime… for a drink or two… I could probably make you forget all about your dead uncle.”

She fights back a grimace and twists it into a neutral expression acknowledgment. Then she leaves, picking up her pace, a little grossed out.

+

A quick trip to the library to look at news records fills in the blank about Frank’s late wife: she’d committed suicide in a town a couple hours away back in 1988. Frank had apparently been working the graveyard shift at the time, so he had an airtight alibi and was never even considered as a suspect.

She meets back up with the boys a couple hours later, and the three of them sneak into Frank’s house now that it’s dark out. The EMF is already reacting loudly the second Sam turns it on.

“What the hell?” He mutters, frowning. 

“Lemme see that thing,” Dean says. When he takes it, it whirs even louder.

“Dude… I think you’re haunted,” Sam says.

“What? I’m not haunted.” Dean shoves the meter back at his brother, scratching uncomfortably at his forearm. 

“Are you possessed by a ghost or something?”

“No. No way.”

Jess frowns. “Dean, come out to the car with me, okay? That way Sam can get a better reading.”

“Yeah. Okay. Fine.”

Sam joins them a few moments later, mentioning that there hadn’t been any traces of EMF in Frank’s whole house. That Dean was the only thing setting off the meter.

“How could I be haunted?” He demands, starting the car, pulling out of his parking spot. “I’m just a guy! People don’t get haunted!”

“It’s okay,” Jess says from the passenger seat. “We’ll figure it out. We’ll do some research or call Bobby if we need to.”

“You were scratching your arm,” Sam comments. “The sheriff we talked to… he was scratching his arm too.”

“Is it a crime to have an itchy arm?” Dean asks, driving with both hands tight on the wheel in the perfect 10 and 2 position.

(there’s something off about this.)

A car whirs past them. Jess’ eyes narrow. When has a car ever _passed_ Dean Winchester?

“Hey, Dean?” She asks calmly. “Why are you going 20?”

“It’s the speed limit.”

She blinks. Glances over her shoulder to Sam. He frowns.

“Since when do you drive the speed limit, dude? Wait, you missed the turn for our hotel.”

“Sam, I'm not gonna make a left-hand turn into oncoming traffic. I'm not suicidal,” Dean huffs.

Neither Jess nor Sam respond, both taken too far aback by how un-Dean-like Dean is acting.

“Did I just say that?” Dean asks with a nervous laugh. “That’s kind of weird.”

+

Sam calls Bobby the next morning, since the three of them don’t turn up a solution on their own, and he cites an affliction called ghost sickness-- basically a spirit infecting a person with fear until it kills them. They figure Sam wasn’t infected by the dead body in the morgue because he didn’t get splashed with ‘spleen juice’ like Dean did.

“What the fuck do we do about it, then?” Dean asks frantically, his eyes wide.

“Bobby said if we destroy the ghost, you’re out of the woods,” Sam answers. “He’s already driving down to help.”

“That’s fuckin’ fantastic,” Dean grumbles. 

Jess is about to say something, but then Dean starts choking-- and a moment later, he coughs up a wood chip into the motel sink.

(a wood chip? what the fuck?) 

“Wait, I think this is a clue,” Sam says, rinsing it off.

“That just came outta my lungs!” Dean all but yells. He glances over his shoulder uneasily. Then, he seems to realize there’s a loaded gun on the table, kind of pointing at him. He fumbles for it and rips the bullets out.

(okay, i have never once seen him take the bullets out of a gun.)

“Hey, calm down. Wanna see if Scooby Doo is on?” Jess suggests.

Dean pulls a disgusted face, like he’s annoyed she would treat him like such a kid, but then he seems to think it over. He nods.

+

Sam and Jess decide he should go investigate the lumber mill marked on the wood chip alone while they wait for Bobby, since Dean clearly needs some supervision.

Jess runs the numbers in her head again. Dean should have until early tomorrow morning before things get really critical. Hopefully Bobby will show up soon, and they can figure out where the remains are, and dispose of them well within that time frame.

“Stop scratching your arm,” she instructs, glancing up from her laptop an hour or so after Sam leaves.

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” Dean yanks his sleeve back down.

“Just relax. Watch the show.” It’s not Scooby Doo, but it’s the doctor show he likes, which always seems to be on.

“Jess, do you think that radiator could blow?”

She blinks, then follows his gaze to the old radiator under the window. “No. No way. They check those things pretty regularly.”

“Maybe we should see if they have a room without a radiator.”

“Every room is going to have a radiator, Dean.”

He nods a few times. Then, as if he hears something, his head whips around to look behind him.

“Do you hear a dog barking?”

“No.”

“Or like, growling?”

“No, Dean, I think you’re imagining it,” she says, reaching for the remote to turn the TV volume up.

(hurry up, sam.)

“I swear I heard--” Dean cuts himself off. His eyes go wide again, and a look of terror falls over his features, so intense it freezes Jess’ nerves.

“What?” She prompts.

“I thought I saw… something.” His breathing is ragged, uneven, too fast. 

“Saw what?”

He shakes his head, screwing his eyes shut. “I don’t… nothing.”

(why the fuck couldn’t scooby doo just be on?)

“Do you want a beer?” Jess offers. “There was a little convenience store down the street. I could grab a six pack.”

“There’s a six pack in the fridge,” he says, already heading toward it. “Good thinkin’.”

“Do you just bring beer with you wherever you go?”

“Well, yeah. What else am I supposed to drink?” He asks as he pops the top off one. He offers it to her. She shakes her head, so he closes the fridge and starts sipping it.

“Water, maybe.”

“I’m not trying to pass a drug test.”

She blinks, trying to figure out what that even means-- but before she can comment, he speaks again.

“You know what I’ve been thinking?”

“What?” She asks.

“Ben takes the bus home from school. I mean, the _bus_. With all the-- he could be getting bullied every day and I wouldn’t even know.”

“I doubt Ben is getting bullied,” she says, almost smiling. “He’s too cool.”

“And you know what else? He gets home from school at three. And Lisa’s at work until five. I mean, he’s alone for two hours. He’s a damn latchkey kid!” Dean shakes his head several times. “We wouldn’t even know if he got snatched on the way home until it was too late. What if someone breaks in? What if something supernatural breaks in?”

“They live in such a nice neighborhood, though.”

“He’s not even ten yet. He’s not old enough to be stuck alone,” Dean insists. “What if he gets hungry? Shit, what time is it in Indiana?”

Jess glances at the motel clock before doing some quick math. “It’s one here, so it’s about three there.”

“I’m gonna call him.”

“Don’t say anything weird,” Jess instructs. “You’ll freak him out. Just be normal.”

“I know how to talk to my own kid,” Dean dismisses, dialing. 

(at least he’s talking to ben instead of avoiding him.)

“Hey, Ben! How’s it going?” He says once Ben picks up. “How was school?”

(he probably never even called lisa back, jess thinks to herself as she pretends not to listen in on his conversation. it’s not her business, but she still wants to say something, to nudge him to be more involved. especially since she knows he only keeps the distance because he thinks ben and lisa are better off that way.)

“I know, I’m sorry, buddy. I’ve been busy. But I’m calling now. You make sure to lock the doors behind you when you come home from school every day, right? ...Good. Do you have one of those rope ladder things for your bedroom window? In case there’s a fire?”

“Dean,” Jess huffs. She shakes her head. He shrugs.

“You don’t? Okay, I’m gonna bring you one next time I visit. Uh… I don’t know when, buddy, I’m kind of in the middle of some stuff… yeah, yeah, I know. I’ll come soon.”

(poor kid misses you! what’s stopping you? go to indiana, you dummy!)

They talk on the phone for a few more minutes. Jess checks her email, responding to one from her aunt, ignoring the other fifteen.

(why does she breathe down my neck? i’m an adult. i’m twenty-six. i can take care of myself.)

“You know, it’s insane they don’t have ADT or one of those security systems,” Dean says after he hangs up. “Single mom with a little kid? That’s like, the prime target. Anyone could just break in. Lisa keeps a key under the door mat, for fuck’s sake.”

“They live in the suburbs,” Jess points out. “Not exactly a high crime area.”

“Yeah, historically. But trends can change. You should know that. You’re the nerdy one,” Dean rambles. He takes a swig of beer. Then he flinches hard again, turning to look over his shoulder, rubbing at his mouth. He moves to sit on the couch against the wall, leaning his back to it. “Jess, if I die, I’m gonna go to hell again.”

“Don’t say that. You aren’t.”

He cringes, raking his hands over his face, covering his eyes and cheeks. When he speaks again, his voice is ragged and small. “I can’t… I can’t go back there. I can’t do it. The hooks, and the fire, and the…”

She frowns hard. “Dean… you said you didn’t remember hell.”

He freezes.

“Yeah, that’s right.”

(he’s lying. he remembers everything.)

But Sam calls just then, cutting the conversation short, letting her know Bobby met him at the lumber mill and they have a solution.

+

Dean’s paranoia increases by the second, but then once the ghost is taken care of, he goes back to normal in a heartbeat.

Jess wants to ask about hell. Ask just how much he remembers. But she doesn’t.

The three of them leave Colorado and head to the lakehouse and dive back into their research on angels and apocalyptic seals and Lucifer.

+

She doesn’t notice Halloween is approaching until it’s three days away and she catches the date on the morning radio news.

(god, she thinks as she pours a cup of coffee, i haven’t celebrated halloween since…)

(since.)

Against her will, her mind replays that weekend. Dean whisking Sam away with a vague explanation, two days spent worrying, and then the grand finale. The yellow-eyed demon coming to kill her, slicing her open, sliding her up the wall until Sam’s voice cut through and he left.

She still has the scar across her stomach, a few inches above her belly button. It’s faded and thin now, but clearly visible in any lighting.

(good thing i’ve always been a one piece swimsuit kind of girl, she thinks gravely. how would i even explain that scar to someone who wasn’t a hunter? surgery? freak power saw accident?)

(that halloween was the last normal night of my life.)

Halloween had always been her favorite holiday growing up, but she’d especially loved it in college. Getting all dolled up in a cute costume, going to a party or out for drinks, handing out candy-- it was so much fun. But she’d skipped most holidays since she’d started hunting.

(the resort does a halloween theme night. maybe we could go to that.)

She knows Sam isn’t into Halloween and there’s no way he’ll dress up. But if there’s alcohol and food, Dean will come, and if Dean and Jess are going, Sam won’t want to be the odd man out.

“Absolutely not,” Sam says predictably when she mentions the idea, the three of them standing around the kitchen drinking coffee. 

“I dunno, sounds kinda fun,” Dean says with a shrug. “Girls in skimpy costumes… bar food… overpriced drinks…”

“You can get laid at any bar,” Sam dismisses. “We don’t need to go to one decked out in plastic skeletons and fake spiderwebs.”

“Why do you hate Halloween so much?”

“Because our whole life is Halloween.”

Jess catches Dean’s glance, and they both roll their eyes.

“What?” Sam demands.

“You’re just so lame, little brother. And boring. And stupid. You got a beautiful girl with a killer sense of humor, and she has perfect aim with any gun, and she’s tall enough that you don’t even look like a freak standing next to her? You should be bending over backward to do anything to make her happy.”

“Yeah, Dean’s right,” Jess says, crossing her arms. “I am beautiful and funny and a perfect shot. So you should do whatever I want.”

Sam makes a face. “Yeah? Well, as payback for the fact that you didn’t even think I was hot until recently, I think you should give me a pass for Halloween.”

Dean laughs a little bit, refilling his coffee. “You’re lucky she thinks you’re hot now, Sam.”

“No, he’s indisputably hot now,” Jess argues. She takes a step closer to him and reaches up to stroke his hair. “I mean, look at him.”

“Yeah, he still looks about twelve years old to me, wearing my hand-me-downs,” Dean jokes, but Sam smiles a little bit.

“Look, Jess, I’ll go out with you any night of the year other than Halloween.”

“Ugh,” she groans, letting go of him, stepping away. “You’re no fun. Dean and me will just go without you.”

“Babe!” Sam whines. “Don’t go to a bar with my brother without me?”

“Nah, it’ll be fun,” Dean says. “She can be my wing woman.”

“That’s gross, Dean,” Sam complains. 

“Hey. When Castiel pulled me outta hell, he put me back together without any of my old scars,” Dean says. “No crooked fingers from being broken, no knife scars, no acne scars.”

“You never had acne!” Sam bursts, suggesting that this is a point of contention for him.

“I had a couple,” Dean insists. “I had a few scars on my cheeks. But they’re gone now. So I figure I’ve been rehymenated.”

“That isn’t even a thing for girls, you dumbass,” Jess says, reaching over to shove Dean in the shoulder.

“Whatever it is. I’m a born again virgin,” Dean says with a shitty grin. “It’s like I’m fourteen again.”

“Fourteen?” Jess demands, her eyebrows shooting up. “You lost your virginity at fourteen?”

“That’s way, way too young, Dean,” Sam scolds.

“Fourteen is normal,” Dean insists. “What, how old were you guys?”

“Nineteen,” Jess answers.

Sam nods. “Yeah.”

Dean’s green eyes shift between the two of them, and his jaw drops. “Nine-- you guys lost your virginity to each other?”

“Um, yeah, Dean,” Sam says.

“That’s pathetic! Your body count is _one_?” He rubs a hand over his face. “Oh my god.”

“That’s perfectly normal,” Jess defends. “Most people probably lose their virginity in college.”

Dean is about to respond when his phone rings. He digs it out of his pocket and answers. “Hello? --Ash, my man, how’s it hanging?”

Jess’ ears perk up a little bit. (maybe he knows something about the seals.)

“Oh yeah, Oregon? We can get there today... Cool. Why don’t you email my nerd brother the intel? --Great. Thanks.” He hangs up, and then glances back over to Sam and Jess. “You guys up to investigate razor blades in Halloween candy?”

+

Seven hours of driving and a quick crime scene visit later, the three of them sit around a motel room table, staring at a hex bag Dean had pulled from behind the fridge.

“So there’s a witch who wanted to hurt this guy,” Jess says, “but no signs pointing to why.”

“Yeah… good thing the town’s so damn small.” Dean picks up the pouch and turns it over in his hand. “Thousand people, more or less? We should be able to zero in pretty easy.”

“Let me see that, Dean.”

He hands the hex bag over to his brother, who opens it up, frowning at its contents. “Gold thread… some kind of herb… a coin… some kind of bone.” He sets everything down but the coin, which he takes a closer look at.

“Okay, you two nerds do the nerd work. I’m gonna start poking around town.”

+

They place the coin as centuries-old Celtic currency, and the herb as something that has been extinct for two hundred years. As for the bone, they’re pretty sure it’s from a newborn baby. The ingredients suggest a really powerful witch.

While Dean is out, there’s a call on the police scanner. A teenage girl drowned bobbing for apples, somehow ending up badly burned by the water, too.

The three of them spend hours the next day asking around and searching for a connection between the two victims, but nothing comes up.

“Maybe they’re sacrifices of some kind,” Sam suggests as they head for Dean’s motel room. “Maybe it’s random.”

“If it was random, how did they get into that guy’s house?”

“Dean, we get into people’s houses all the time.”

“That’s true,” Jess agrees. “The witch could have some kind of demon working with them. Maybe they even possessed the man or his wife and used their body to plant the bag.”

“That’s dark.”

“Well, you said it yourself, Sam. This witch is really powerful.”

Dean takes the key card out of his wallet and swipes it, unlocking the door. “Thing is, if they are sacrifices, witches usually do things in threes. So we better haul ass to figure out who’s doing this shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Hello, Dean.”

Jess jumps a little, not having expected an unseen voice to greet them from inside Dean’s room. But when she gathers herself she sees the two of them, standing by the far wall-- the angel Castiel and another man.

“Dammit, Cas, you gotta stop sneaking up on me, man,” Dean huffs. “Who’s your friend?”

“This is my brother,” Castiel says flatly. “Uriel. We’re here to ensure that this seal is not broken.”

“What seal?” Sam asks.

Castiel holds up a small pouch much like the other two they’d found-- a hex bag. “This was hidden in your room. We have identified the witch behind these sacrifices, and he is clearly privy to your investigation, or he wouldn’t have known to leave this hex bag. We must prevent the third and final death.”

“So I was right, they are sacrifices,” Sam says. “What are they sacrificing to?”

“It’s a ritual,” Uriel says, his voice deep and intimidating. “To summon the demon Samhain.”

“The raising of Samhain is one of the 66 seals to free Lucifer,” Castiel drones. “So I’m sure you understand our urgency.”

“Yeah, loud’n clear,” Dean says. 

“How do we stop it?” Jess asks.

“You leave town,” Uriel commands. “Immediately. The only solution we have is to destroy this town and its residents.”

“Destroy-- that’s a thousand people,” Sam protests.

“You can’t just wipe out an entire town,” Jess adds angrily. “Can’t we just find the third sacrifice and prevent it?”

“Insubordination will be punished,” Uriel says.

Castiel looks from the other angel to the three humans. If Jess didn’t know better, she would have thought he had frowned a little.

“We ain’t skipping town just so you can kill everyone,” Dean says. “We’re staying. So if you wanna destroy the town, well, you’re going to have to take us down with it.”

(dean--)

“I figure I’m worth something to the man upstairs,” he continues. “otherwise he wouldn’t have given the order to yank me from hell. So you winged bastards are going to be in a load of shit if you kill me, right?”

(oh, jess thinks, a little relieved. yeah. okay. that makes sense.)

Uriel takes a step toward Dean, but Castiel holds his arm out, stopping his brother. He trains his solemn navy blue eyes on Dean’s. 

“Alright,” he says, his eyes still locked on Dean’s. “We will give you the chance to prevent the seal from breaking. You have twenty-four hours.”

+

After Castiel tells them who the witch is, the three of them hunt him down and break into his house.

“Is someone screaming downstairs?” Sam asks, frowning hard, as they make their way into the house. 

“Sounds like it,” Jess says. She readies her gun. “Let’s move.”

They find the stairs easily and start heading down. 

“Locked,” Dean grumbles after trying the knob. He throws his weight against it a few times, though, and it opens.

They’re faced with an alarming sight: the witch standing over a young woman, raising a huge knife at her.

Before anyone else can react, Sam shoots the witch in the head. He slumps over.

“We’ll get you out of here, you’re okay,” Jess says, taking a few steps toward the young woman-- but she only smiles. She mutters a few words in a language Jess doesn’t recognize. And then in a flash Jess is on the floor, unable to move, the boys crumbled next to her.

“Son of a bitch,” Dean grunts.

The girl says a few more lines in whatever language she’d been speaking-- something along the Celtic lines, Jess assumes, based on that coin Sam had traced.

(okay, jessica, come on, think fast, you’re smart so be smart, she begs herself silently.)

But apparently she isn’t smart enough. Because the girl finishes her spell, and the corpse of the man animates, rising to its feet evenly. He stabs the girl in the heart, killing her.

The hold on Jess, Sam, and Dean is released once the witch is dead. Dean starts to move, but Sam and Jess seem to have the same idea-- play dead-- and Sam grabs his brother’s arm to stop him.

The three of them watch the possessed corpse wander up the stairs and out of the basement.

“Okay, we have to go,” Sam instructs in a whisper once he’s cleared the house. “Come on.”

“How’d you know to do that, Sam?” Dean asks as they head up the stairs.

“He’s one of the most powerful demons, like Lilith. They can kill in milliseconds. We wouldn’t have had a chance.”

“Look, he’s walking down the street,” Jess points out as they shove the front door open a moment later.

The three of them pile into the Impala and Dean starts following the demon, who walks a short route to the cemetery. 

(we failed to save the seal, jess thinks angrily as dean drives. fuck. fuck fuck fuck. that angel is going to smite us all, or something. at least we didn’t let them kill everyone in the town, though. i guess that’s worth it.)

Dean parks haphazardly on the road by the cemetery, and all three of them shove out of the car, chasing after the demon with no real game plan.

But before they can even get close, Castiel appears out of nowhere. The three of them watch in shock as Castiel stabs a thin silver knife into the demon, sending a burst of red through his body, killing him instantly. 

“Whoa,” Dean says in awe. “What… what was that?”

Castiel turns to look at them, and instead of walking the fifteen or so feet to catch up, he disappears and reappears a few inches from Dean’s face. 

“My sword,” he says matter-of-factly. “Every angel has one.”

“Guess you aren’t just happy to see me, then.”

Castiel ignores Dean’s quip. “You have failed to keep the seal in tact,” he says.

“Yeah, sorry about that, but it’s just one of 66 so it shouldn’t be a huge deal,” Dean says with an uncomfortable shrug.

“They are all, as you say, huge deals.”

“We’ll, uh, we’ll get the next one,” Sam offers.

Castiel just gives him a hard look. And a second later, he’s gone.

+

In the morning Jess and Sam pack their stuff into his Chevy Cavalier and head out, trailing behind Dean’s car, driving north toward Washington thanks to a case lead they’d found online.

“What I don’t get is, why don’t the angels just take care of the seals themselves?” Sam asks as he drives down the highway. “Why do we have to be involved at all?”

“I don’t know. I don’t get it. I mean, Castiel went to all the trouble of resurrecting Dean to deal with this. But how are we even supposed to… do that? We can’t track the seals, and the angels won’t tell us, even though they seem to have a running list of them.”

Sam sighs, shaking his head. “I feel like there’s a ton of shit they’re just not telling us.”

Jess leans her cheek on her hand, staring out the front window, watching Oregon go by in a whir of evergreen-- it’s pretty. “Yeah. Definitely. Not that I ever really thought about it before, or anything, but this isn’t how I would have imagined angels.”

“Not at all.”

Dean swerves a little bit ahead of them, and she frowns, but then she realizes why it happened-- Castiel had popped into his passenger seat.

“Hey, look, Castiel’s in your brother’s car,” she points out.

“Weird.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, wanna put some music on?”

“Yeah. We need to try out some new things so we can buy some CDs we agree on,” she says with a laugh, reaching for the radio knob.

They drive for about five more hours until they hit the Washington town with the alleged shower ghost. Castiel stays in Dean’s passenger seat for almost half that time.

+

The shower ghost turned out to be a teenage boy who had made an invisibility wish. Jess, Sam, and Dean trace the wishes to a wishing well in a local Chinese restaurant in which a local man had dropped a magic coin. It’s kind of a refreshing case, with lower stakes than usual and no death toll.

From there, they deal with a vampire nest in Montana. And a couple weeks later, staying at a hotel in Utah on the way back to the lakehouse, Jess gets a phone call from Ruby.

She frowns at the caller ID for a second before glancing over to the boys, who are arguing about liquor laws. Their voices are raised, and Sam is doing the wide hand gesturing thing-- she can slip out without a comment, and nobody will notice. So she does.

“Hi, Ruby,” she answers once she’s safe in the rainy parking lot. “What’s up?”

“I have some info you guys might want,” Ruby says. “I’m hearing whispers about a girl called Anna Milton.”

Jess glances around the darkened parking lot for no real reason. “Okay.”

“She escaped from a locked mental hospital ward yesterday. The demons seem pretty keen on finding her. And I’m not just talking your run of the mill black eyes-- some real heavy hitters are turning up to hunt her down.”

Jess fumbles with the zipper on her jacket with her free hand. Being hunted down by a demon? She knows what that’s like. And she wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

“Do you know who she is? What they want her for?” Jess asks.

“No,” Ruby sighs. “But I'm thinking that she's important, 'cause the order is to capture her alive-- and there’s word that angels are involved, and it’s a game of us getting her before they do. I just figured that whatever the deal is, you might want to find this girl before the demons do.”

“Yeah, yeah, I think we do. Thanks for letting me know, Ruby. Do you know what hospital she escaped from?”

+

The Winchester boys aren’t too happy about taking a case from a demon, but after half an hour of arguing, nobody can come up with an ulterior motive. So after calling for the missing person’s report to prove that Anna exists at all, the three of them set out for Minnesota to investigate the hospital Anna Milton escaped from.

“What’d you get?” Dean asks from the Impala as Sam wanders out of the hospital, still dressed in his FBI suit. 

“Anna knocked out an orderly when she escaped,” Sam says, getting back into the backseat. “A guy who easily had 80 pounds on her. She knocked him out cold to the point where he doesn’t remember going in the room at all.”

“Might’ve been possessed,” Jess notes from the passenger seat.

“Yeah,” Sam sighs. “Anna was schizophrenic. Came out of nowhere a couple months ago. And look at this.” He holds up a drawing, showing them to Jess and Dean-- a carved jack-o-lantern, with the caption THE RAISING OF SAMHAIN IS THE NEXT SEAL BROKEN.

“She’s psychic, or something,” Dean says. 

“Maybe. The psychologist said her father is a church deacon, and her paranoia was religious. She was always talking about Lucifer rising up. End of days.”

“Maybe we should call Cas.”

Jess frowns, glancing over to Dean. “He was going to destroy that whole city a few weeks back, Dean. I don’t know if we should be calling him in to help us with anything.”

“He didn’t want to,” Dean says, shifting a little in his seat. “He was questioning the orders the whole time. That’s why he was so eager to give us a second chance.”

“He told you that in your little heart-to-heart on the way to Washington?” Sam asks, almost accusatory.

“Yeah, matter of fact, he did.”

Jess sighs. “Can we just start off on our own, at least? See what we can do?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“I have the address of the church Anna Milton’s father works at,” Sam says. “And her parents’ house. Let’s go see what they know.”

+

Anna Milton’s parents don’t know anything. Because they’re dead. Freshly, the three of them figure, thanks to the early state of decay on the bodies.

So they head to the church-- because as Sam points out, if you’re religious and scared and you think demons are chasing you, it’s where you’d feel safest.

The church is a huge building with stained glass windows, grandiose and looming. It looks more like something out of Italy or Spain than America, Jess thinks as she gets out of the car, looking up at it. But it’s undoubtedly beautiful.

“Aren’t there going to be people inside?” Jess asks as she takes it in.

“I don’t think so,” Sam says, setting his hand on her shoulder for a second. “It’s a Thursday. Weeknight worship is usually in the evening, on Wednesdays. There might be a couple people in the back offices or in the confession booths.”

(how do you know church stuff? she wonders. did you used to go to church? she knows he didn’t go when they lived together. but maybe he did their freshman year.)

“It’s a church, they’re like, free reign,” Dean says with a shrug. “C’mon.”

Sam’s prediction about the church’s contents turns out to be accurate, and they’re easily able to start poking around back rooms and the basement. They don’t find any signs of Anna, though, and anyway, she would be hiding if she is here-- so they start to sneak up to the church’s attic.

As they make their way up the three flights of stairs, it becomes clear that the higher they go, the longer it’s been since anyone has been here-- or at least cleaned. Everything is dusty and outdated. They pass a dead plant on one of the landings that, given the circumstances, creeps Jess out a little tiny bit.

“Anna?” Dean calls gruffly once they get to the top.

(his voice sounds like it hurts, she notes. he hasn’t sounded the same since he went to hell. i wonder what that’s about.)

No response.

There’s a door down the slim hallway, though, so the three of them approach it, guns at the ready just in case.

“It’s unlocked,” Sam notes once he gets to it. He nudges it open.

It’s a sort of store room, with a few stacked chairs and a dozen or so dusty cardboard boxes. The only light is filtered through the big round stained glass window, and thanks to the cloud-logged sky, it’s dim.

“Anna?” Dean calls again.

“We aren’t here to hurt you,” Sam adds. “We’re here to help. My name is Sam. This is my girlfriend Jess and my brother Dean. We just want to talk to you.”

“Dean?” A thin voice comes from behind a filing cabinet. Its owner stands, a young woman with red hair and deep-set eyes. “Not… Dean Winchester?”

“The one and only,” Dean confirms, taking a few steps toward her.

“Are you okay?” Jess asks.

She ignores Jess’ question, her intense eyes still trained on the older Winchester brother. “The angels talk about you. You were in hell, but Castiel pulled you out, and some of them think you can help save us. They talk about you all the time lately,” Anna says quietly. “I feel like I know you.”

“You’re tuned into angel radio,” he says, almost with a little bit of reverence on his tone. 

“What?” Sam asks.

“Cas told me all about it in the car,” Dean explains. “It’s this sort of network the angels use to communicate with each other. They can all just hear it. So, Anna… you’re just tuned in, somehow, and they locked you up like you were crazy.” He shakes his head a little bit.

“Yes,” she says, clearly relieved, her tone a little rounder now. “Thank you.”

“Do you know when the voices started, Anna?” Jess asks.

“Yeah. I can tell you exactly. It was a little over three months ago. September 18th.”

“That’s the day I got out of hell,” Dean half-mutters.

Anna nods. “The first words I heard, clear as a bell-- ‘Dean Winchester is saved’.”

“Well, at least now we know why the demons want you so bad. They get a hold of you, they can hear everything the other side's cooking. You're 1-900-angel,” Dean says with a sigh. “Can you talk back to ‘em?”

“No. I doubt they know I exist.”

Jess thinks back to what Ruby had said about angels looking for Anna, too. But she decides not to mention it-- it’s too flimsy to go off.

And then she notices something.

(is someone coming up the stairs?)

“Sam,” she says quietly. 

“Yeah, babe?”

“I think I hear someone coming.”

“Fuck,” Dean huffs. “Me too.”

Sam frowns. “Anna-- go hide in that closet.”

(i miss my intuition, jess thinks, frustrated. if i had it, i would know if it was humans or demons or angels or what.)

But she doesn’t have it, and when the door bursts open a moment later, it just looks like a normal guy. But then he blinks, and his eyes go black.

(fuck! why didn’t we line the door with salt? are we stupid?)

“Give me the girl,” the demon says. 

Sam takes a few steps toward him, but he easily pushes Sam aside, throwing him into the hallway and onto his face. He does the same with Jess, moving her through the air unnaturally, unnervingly, in a way that reminds her of how yellow eyes was sliding her up the wall that night--

Her pulse spikes. Her spine goes cold. Her ears go numb.

She can’t move. By the looks of it, Sam can’t either.

For some reason, the demon is staying to fight Dean instead of pushing him off to the side like he did with Sam and Jess. He’s acting like they know each other.

(oh my god jessica don’t be stupid just ecorsize him!)

“Exorcizamus te,” she manages. “Omnis immundus spiritus--”

A moment later, she hears the demon flying out of the vessel, and the man crumbles to the floor, dead.

The grip on Sam and Jess is lifted. They’re able to stand.

“Nice fuckin’ work, blondie,” Dean says, breathless. “I don’t think he even noticed you were doing that.”

“Thanks,” she says with a nod. “Why was he fighting you?”

“Playing with his damn food,” Dean grunts, holding his left arm in his right. “Think that bastard dislocated my shoulder.”

“Come here,” Sam says. He gets a grip on his brother’s shoulder. “On three. One--” he shoves it back into place. Dean groans a little in pain.

“Thanks.”

“Thank you for getting rid of him,” Anna says as she steps out of the closet. “If you weren’t here I don’t know what I would have done.”

(gotten kidnapped by a demon, probably, jess thinks to herself.)

“Let’s haul ass outta here before Alastair sends backup,” Dean suggests.

“Alastair?” Sam asks as the four of them head for the stairs.

“Yeah. Nasty son of a bitch.”

“Do you… know him?”

“Uh, no. He just told me his name,” Dean lies.

(you remember him from hell, don’t you? jess wants to ask. but she doesn’t. it’s not the time.)

“Do you guys know if my parents are alright?” Anna asks as they get to the main floor a moment later. “I didn’t feel like it was safe to go home. I didn’t want to lead the demons right to them.”

Jess’ heart sinks a little bit.

“Uh, about that,” Sam says quietly. “We… didn’t get there in time to save them. I’m really sorry, Anna.”

She blocks out Anna’s cries. Pretends she isn’t actually there walking a sobbing girl back to Dean’s car. Pretends she’s watching somebody else’s life instead of living her own.

(too close to home.)

+

The four of them sit around Dean’s hotel room for a while, unsure of what to do other than salt the windows and door to keep demons out. 

“I mean, we’re gonna have to leave for food at some point,” Dean comments eventually.

Jess takes the battery pack cover off the remote and slides it back into place for maybe the hundredth time since they posted up here. She glances out the crack between the curtains. 

“The parking lot is clear,” she says.

“The hallways aren’t.” Sam sighs, straightening up, moving away from the peephole.

“The one time we stay in a hotel,” Dean grumbles. “If we were in our usual kinda haunt we could’ve booked it to baby and back by now.”

“Baby?” Anna asks.

Sam rolls his eyes. “My brother is in love with his car,” he explains. “He calls it baby.”

“I call _her_ baby.”

“Yeah. Okay. You’re sick.”

“At least I’m not freakishly tall.”

“Boys,” Jess interrupts. “We aren’t arguing about whose height is better. Not again. Dean is right. We can’t stay here, there are too many people around for demons to possess.”

“What about you guys?” Anna asks. “Can’t they possess you?”

Jess shakes her head. “We have anti-possession sigils tattooed onto our bodies,” she explains. Sam pulls the collar of his shirt down to show her his, and she nods.

“That’s smart.”

“It was my idea,” Dean brags. “I’m the smart one.”

“You are not, Dean. I’m clearly the smart one. You didn’t even graduate high school,” Sam argues.

“I have a GED. Doesn’t that count for something?”

“You don’t have a legal driver’s license either!”

Jess hadn’t noticed that Anna had wandered over to look out the peephole until the girl gasps in fear, stumbling backward.

Dean is already on his feet. “What?”

“Their faces,” she says quietly. She shakes her head. “They’re horrible.”

(what is this girl? jess wonders. how can she listen in on the angels and see what demons really look like?)

(she’s probably really powerful. and she either doesn’t know it, or she’s playing dumb.)

The color drains from Dean’s face. His shoulders tense up. “Demons. Yeah. I know what you mean.”

“You’ve seen their true faces? How?” 

“Before I went to hell a few months back, when my time was running out, I started being able to see them. Ugly sons of bitches. Enough nightmare fuel to last a lifetime.”

(jess thinks back to those last few weeks before dean went to hell, when he was sleeping on couches, waking up with a gun in his hand, looking over his shoulder.)

(he probably has ptsd, she realizes. he’s just in denial.)

But that’s a problem for another time.

“Maybe we can sneak out the window,” Sam comments. “Down the fire escape. We’re only on the second floor.”

“Maybe,” Dean agrees. “Does the window even open?”

“We can break it,” Jess points out.

Sam frowns. “The demons in the hall, they’d hear.”

“So blast the TV.” Dean takes the remote from Jess and turns it on, flicking through channels from the news, to a cooking show, to a nature documentary, to a soap opera, to an action movie. “Perfect. Lots of gunshots and crashes and bangs. I know this one really well. We can time the window break to a crash,” he says quietly. 

Sam nods, taking his gun out of his pocket. 

A few moments later, the window is smashed. Jess lays a towel over the broken glass, and the four of them climb out, hurrying down the fire escape.

It’s one of those moments that makes Jess wonder how the hell she ended up here, doing something people only do in movies. But she doesn’t have time to ponder it.

They race to the Impala and pile in. Dean has the thing turned on and driving before anyone else even has their window shut.

“Strong work,” Sam says, a little breathless, from the back seat. “Anna, say something if you see a demon, okay?”

“Yeah,” she agrees. 

Jess reaches for the passenger side seatbelt. “Dean, oh my god, if you’re playing action hero car chase you need to wear a seatbelt.”

“What are you, the safety police?” He grumbles, though he puts his seatbelt on.

+

They drive around town a few times before they’re confident nobody is following them. Then, they stop at a gas station on the edge of town for snacks since Dean is so worried about being hungry. 

Eventually, they find themselves at an empty cabin a couple hours into the woods. They hole up in it, salting the doors and windows, settling in. Anna shuts herself in one of the bedrooms, saying she needs quiet to clear her head and process everything.

They aren’t there for half an hour when, with an unsettling flutter of invisible wings, Castiel and Uriel materialize in the living room, looking unearthly in spite of their average human vessels. Castiel’s hair is messed up, like he just woke up from a nap, though Jess figures angels probably don’t need to sleep. Uriel looks angry.

“Cas,” Dean says, almost sounding relieved. “Please tell me you’re here to help. We’ve been having demon issues all day.”

“We’re here for Anna,” Castiel says gravely.

“Here for her like, here to help her?” Sam asks.

Uriel almost smirks. “No. We have to kill her.”

Jess blinks. “What? No.”

“You’re not going to kill her,” Dean adds.

“She’s not as innocent as you might think,” Castiel says regretfully. 

“Well, we aren’t going to let you hurt her,” Sam says. 

Castiel sighs, his angel blade falling from his sleeve into his hand. He catches it deftly. Uriel catches his own sword, as well.

“We have been instructed to use force,” Uriel says. “And we won’t hesitate.”

“You are hesitating, you harp-playing dickhead,” Dean retorts.

“Dean--”

One word from Castiel, and Dean’s eyes are trained on him. Navy blue on mossy green, locked, like the argument is just between the two of them.

“Please listen to me,” he continues. “We wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. We have no choice. Now step aside.”

“No,” Dean says with a half shrug. “You wanna get to her, you’re going to have to go through us.”

Jess grabs her navy blue Smith & Wesson gun and cocks it without thinking. Then, realizing these are angels she’s up against, she feels stupid. But she keeps it pointed at them, unsure of what else to do.

“Dean…”

Castiel can’t finish his thought, though. Because in a flash of white light, he and Uriel are sucked from the room, disappearing into nothing.

Jess blinks. “What the hell?”

“Anna?” Dean calls. “Are you okay?”

The three of them hurry to the room she’s shut herself in. She stands there, in front of the mirror, her palms bloody. She’d drawn an elaborate and unfamiliar symbol in her own blood.

“Did it work?” She asks, breathlessly. “Are they gone?”

“Yeah, they’re gone,” Sam says, yanking a pillow case off a pillow from the bed and coming to press it against Anna’s palm. “What did you do?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “I… that symbol just came to me.”

Jess looks at it. A circle with a symbol inside, surrounded by six or so other symbols, still dripping in Anna's blood. “We have to get out of here before they can come back,” she says. 

“Good thinking.” Sam nods. “Bobby’s place should only be a few hours’ drive. We can hide Anna in his panic room. He’s out of town last I heard, but I have a key.”

“Great. Let’s go.”

+

When they get to Bobby’s, Dean drops Anna, Jess, and Sam off with a vague comment about visiting an old friend. He comes back an hour later with Pamela Barnes in his car.

(i’m shocked she would want anything to do with any of us after castiel blinded her, jess thinks as dean guides pamela to bobby’s front door.)

Pamela says something about wanting revenge on the angels, though, and she, Dean, and Anna shut themselves in the panic room to see if they can find an explanation for all of this in Anna’s subconscious.

And before too long, they do. Anna’s an angel.

“I used to fight alongside Castiel and Uriel,” she explains, already a different air about her. “But then I did the worst thing an angel can do. I question orders. I disobeyed. I ripped my grace out.”

“You… ripped your grace out,” Dean repeats slowly. “Because you wanted to become human?”

Anna nods. “The longer I was human, the more of it I forgot. Until the angels returned to earth. Then I was forced to remember.”

“Damn,” Sam says under his breath.

“Why would you want to become human?” Dean asks.

“I hated being an angel. I hated following orders blindly. I… I watched over all of you, and I wanted to experience it for myself. Life.”

“Okay,” Jess says. “So why does hell want you?”

“Because I’m flesh and blood, without my cosmic powers-- but still an angel. They could question me. Torture information out of me. Get a leg up in this war,” Anna explains gravely. “I… I have to get my grace back. It’s the only way to avoid capture in hell. I guess I’ll just have to deal with my brothers and sisters when I return to heaven, and take whatever punishment they deem fit.”

+

“Jess, I have a theory,” Sam says once the two of them are alone in Bobby’s living room, Anna having gone back to the panic room, Dean having left to take Pamela home.

“Yeah?”

“I asked Anna her birthday earlier. I think… that must’ve been the day she fell, right?”

“I mean, as far as I can tell,” Jess answers with a shrug.

“So I think I should be able to figure out where she fell. Like, where she landed.”

“I would’ve thought this whole thing was a little more metaphorical than that.”

Sam reaches for his laptop and opens it. “I would have too, but I was thinking about what Ruby said a while back about angels-- it’s cosmic. And I was reading one of Bobby’s angel lore books while we were waiting for them to finish in the panic room… as soon as she said she was a fallen angel, I had the idea. I’m thinking there’s a chance. If I can find a record of something falling the day Anna was born, it could be her grace.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Jess allows. “I’ll get my laptop out of the car and we can both look.”

+

By the time Dean makes it back, they have an answer: a meteor shower in Kentucky.

“Union, Kentucky,” Sam explains to his brother. “In '85, there was an empty field outside of town. Six months later, there was a full-grown oak. They say it looks a century old at least. The locals called it a miracle.”

“Okay,” Dean says with a nod. “So you think Anna’s grace is in… a tree?”

“Look, it’s the only lead we have. And it’s less than two days of driving.” Sam shrugs. “I think we should at least try.”

“Where my grace hit, it easily could have done something like that,” Anna confirms from the living room’s doorway. 

Jess glances over to the doorway-- she hadn’t heard Anna approach.

“Grace ground zero,” Dean says. “It’s not destruction?”

“It’s pure creation.”

+

The four of them pile into Dean’s car and he speeds his way down to Kentucky.

They park outside the oak field. Anna confirms it’s the right place-- that she can feel it-- but the tree that held her grace is gone.

+

“We can’t fight heaven and hell at the same time,” Dean grumbles as he finishes the anti-demon warding on the abandoned barn they’d found in the middle of nowhere. He tosses the spent can of spray paint on the dusty floor. “We’re just four humans. We don’t stand a chance.”

“We could see if Ruby will come fight with us,” Jess suggests.

“We don’t need to involve ourselves with demons any more than we already are, babe,” Sam argues.

“Well, do you have a better idea?”

“Hey, guys?” Anna cuts in. “The angels… they’re talking again.”

“What are they saying?” Sam asks eagerly.

She frowns, her red eyebrows furrowed. “It's weird... Like a recording... a loop. It says, Dean Winchester gives us Anna by midnight, or..."

“Or what?” Dean asks.

“...or we hurl him back to damnation."

He rubs a hand over his mouth. “I’m… I gotta get some air. I’ll be right back.”

“Dean--”

He ignores his brother. He’s already outside.

Sam sighs. “Anna, we gotta figure out a way out of this. How do you kill an angel?”

“The only method I know of is an angel blade,” she answers. “And I don’t have mine, not since I fell. We can’t make one. The only way to get one is to take it from a dead angel.”

“And the only way to kill an angel is with an angel blade,” Jess says, ripping at a leaf she’d picked up off the floor. “No way to enter a closed loop.”

“Precisely,” Anna confirms.

“We have to do something. I’m not letting my brother go back to hell.”

“I understand if you want out of this,” Anna says. “I can continue to search for my grace on my own. You can go hide in your friend’s panic room until I either succeed or die trying.”

“No, Anna, we’re not giving up,” Jess says. “We’ll figure something out. We always do.”

“Cas! Stop!” 

The barn door flies open just as Sam, Jess, and Anna turn to look. Castiel steps inside.

(motherfucker. how did he find us?)

“God dammit, Cas, I said I just wanted to talk,” Dean huffs, trailing behind him.

“You called him here?” Jess demands. “What the fuck, Dean?”

“The time for talking is passed,” Castiel says gravely before Dean can speak again. “Hello, Anna.”

“Hello, Castiel,” Anna says calmly.

Uriel appears in the doorway with a flutter of wings. He follows his brother inside.

(great. all that warding, and-- great.)

“Anna, I’m sorry,” Castiel says politely.

“No you’re not,” she scoffs. “You don’t know what sorry feels like. You don’t know what anything feels like. You’re an angel.”

“We have a history,” he says, not bothering to argue with her. “I didn’t want it to come to this.”

“Yeah, but you have orders. Just make it quick, okay?”

“Castiel?” A singsong-y male voice comes from outside. “Uriel? Aww, why won’t you let me in the clubhouse?”

“Alastair,” Dean says quietly.

“Get rid of him,” Jess insists. 

“Jess,” Sam says next to her, so quiet, she barely hears. She glances his way. He shakes his head no, barely enough of a movement to perceive. She frowns hard.

(you can’t just make me take this on blind faith, sam, if you have a plan you need to share it!)

But she does anyway. At the end of the day, she trusts him more than anyone.

“Smite that demon,” Uriel orders Castiel.

“You can’t smite me that easily, I’m not your average bottom feeder,” Alastair says casually. He’s in a different vessel now, a young man, tall and lanky with thick black hair. “You’re going to have to come out here and fight me. Winner gets the girl, I suppose.”

“Or what?” Castiel demands.

“Or I won’t call off the hellhounds I’ve ordered.”

Jess glances at Dean without really meaning to. He looks pale, his eyes wide.

Castiel and Uriel are already outside. After a moment, Jess realizes Anna is gone, too.

“Where’d she go?” She demands, turning around.

“What?” Sam asks.

Jess is already moving for the door. “Anna.”

“Jess, don’t go out there, just let them duke it out,” Sam says, grabbing her arm, stopping her. 

“What?”

“I summon Alastair,” Sam admits. “If you have Godzilla and Mothra attacking a city…”

“Best thing to do is sic ‘em on each other,” Dean finishes. “Good thinkin’, little brother.”

Jess exhales hard, frustrated. 

“Just let them kill each other,” Sam says. “Angels versus demons-- this isn’t something we’ll walk away from. Alistair can’t come in here. Just stay put.”

“Fine,” Jess huffs.

“I have it,” Anna says breathlessly, appearing in the doorway. Her eyes glow blue. And for a second, Jess could have sworn she saw the shadow of wings splayed across the barn walls.

“Your grace?” Sam asks.

She nods. “I can end all of this.”

+

She does. Both sides having managed to lose, they all just sort of leave. Including Anna. 

“Okay,” Dean says, nodding, looking outside to make sure they’re all gone. “I could use a drink. Anyone else?”

+

They find a bar about thirty miles away, just inside a small Kentucky town, and they tuck themselves into a remote booth with a beer, a double whiskey, and a vodka soda.

“So you summoned a demon,” Jess says to Sam halfway into her vodka soda, comfortably tipsy. She turns to face Dean, sitting on the other side of the booth. “And you summoned an angel.”

“Guilty,” Dean says with a shrug.

“Can we all agree to stop summoning cosmic entities without telling each other?” She suggests. “I’m sick of backroom plans and angels coming out of nowhere.”

“Yeah,” Sam says with half a laugh, offering his beer to cheers. She clinks her glass against it. “Agreed.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean says, clinking his glass too.

Jess sips her drink, satisfied.

“Although that did work out back there,” Sam mentions, sliding his arm around Jess’ shoulders. “They distracted each other enough that Anna was able to steal her grace back. It worked out better than I expected.”

“Just ‘cause it worked out this time doesn’t mean it will next time.”

“Don’t be such a downer, Jess, we’re trying to celebrate,” Dean whines. He drains his glass and immediately catches the passing waitress’ eye. “Hey, sweetheart, can I get a refill?”

“You got it,” she says as she heads back to the bar.

“Why did you summon Castiel, anyway?” Jess asks.

Dean shrugs, wiping at his mouth. “Angel radio said they were gonna throw me back in the pit. It kinda freaked me. So I wanted to ask Cas about it.”

“What did he say?” Sam asks.

Before he answers, Dean does something Jess doesn’t often see him do-- he takes a long swig of water. “He said he wouldn’t let that happen.”

+

**Author's Note:**

> thank you SO much for reading!!! this au is an insane passion project of mine. i'm scratching itches i've had for 8 years. please leave a comment!
> 
> and also if you want to join my supernatural discord server, hit me up at pramcine.tumblr.com or dm me on discord at s'nat#4736 for the link!
> 
> and look i'm sorry about typos and stuff. i proofread but i never seem to catch errors until it's already published. i'm no miracle worker.
> 
> if there is anything you want to see in a future chapter-- requests or suggestions, anything you're wanting more of, etc-- please let me know! i want to please the masses....... this rewrite is for all of us


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